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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



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The Pilgrim 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 

EDWARD RUSKIN WELCH 



ASH EVI LLE ADVOCATE 



~j)S> ion 
. 3 



DEC 26 '22 



DEDICATION 

To that noble band of parishioners and friends 
Whose great generosity made possible this pilgrimage; 
To all my fellow pilgrims whom I shall ever 
Hold in fond regard; 

To her who is my comrade and inspiration 

To make every day a pilgrimage to some Holy Land; 

To a Christian layman whose confidence and 

Esteem is precious; 

To a little girl who loves me; 

To all these and many others this volume is 

Affectionately dedicated. 



AUTHOR'S NOTE. 

We felicitate ourselves most generously on being able to launch this 
volume with the prestige of Dr. W. A. Shelton's fine introduction. The 
honor only exceeds the personal pleasure. With him the writer has enjoyed 
a long and most congenial friendship. We feel that no man is better qualified 
for speaking on the subject of Palestine. He has but recently spent a year 
in the Near East as a member of the Chicago University Archaeological 
Expedition. The public awaits with eagerness the appearance of a promised 
volume from his graphic and learned pen. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The subject of this volume, "A Palestine Pilgrimage," is ever of com- 
pelling interest to all who study the history of religion or interest themselves 
in those things which have to do with the development of civilization. One 
might be neither Christian nor Jew nor yet a Moslem, all of which have 
a peculiar interest in the Land and each of which holds it sacred, but yet 
if he have any concern with history or human progress he would still be 
interested in the cradle of the great issues and great movements which have 
tremendously influenced the world's ongoing. To the three great faiths of 
the world today Palestine remains the place of most vital interest and will 
continue to do so to the end of time. Though a relatively small country, 
geographically and politically, it has stood for five thousand years as "The 
Bridge of the Nations," the Pathway of the Ancient Civilizations, and the 
School Room in which God prepared His people for their great mission m 
the world and in which, under His guidance, the foundations of all law and 
literature, worth while, in the world was laid. 

Humanity will never lose interest in those rugged ways over which the 
Patriarchs walked with God and the Prophets traveled up and down de- 
nouncing the sins of kings and championing the cause of the poor, and 
over which walked the feet of Him who "taught as one having authority," 
and "spake as never man spake;" the place where the infant church struggled 
until it conquered and the kingdom of Christ spread out to the uttermost 
parts of the earth. 

Many books have been written upon the subject, but they are ever new 
and, from the pen of the many we get a better vision of those places we 
long to see. Peculiar interest attaches to the Land just now for the reason 
that it is becoming again the political catspaw that it was for the first four 
milleniums of human history, and also because, for the first time in five 
thousand years, there appears evidences of change, and when in this change- 
less land, relentless change sets in, the old things as they have always 
been, will very quickly pass away and the tourist of the future will be 
unable to see them as they were in those days of deepest human interest. 

The author of this volume has long been my friend and knowing him as 
I do, I believe that he is peculiarly fitted for the task of producing a worth- 
while book. Few men are better qualified to see the Land of the Book than 
he. Possessed of a soul so sensitive to the things of ethical and spiritual 
life, quickened by the dynamic of an unbounded enthusiasm, he is able to 
find and analyse that which the average traveler would entirely overlook. 
Gifted in the use of good English and untiring in industry, he is capable of 
making others see that which he has seen. "A Palestine Pilgrimage" 
should have a most hospitable reception in the field of travel literature. 

W. A. SHELTON. 

Emory University, Ga. 
September 12, 1922. 



FOREWORD. 

For years we had dreamed of a possible pilgrimage to Palestine, but 
the proverbial wolf always stood too close to the door. In 1921, through 
the exceeding generosity of parishioners and friends, a door of opportunity 
opened wide and with unbounded gratitude we entered. Our party was most 
congenial and from start to finish the pilgrimage was one continual 
kaleidoscopic thrill after another. We toured Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, 
of course omitting very much of interest. The three countries are discussed 
under the title of Palestine because they have been interwoven in Israel's 
genesis and development, as indeed they have been in all the centuries of 
history. But their chief interest lies in that Jehovah here enacted the 
tragic history of the fittest available race for His purpose — that of con- 
creting certain great religious ideals in a nation's life and climaxing the 
process in an atonement for all races and all peoples. Here was born the 
Christ of God. 

We confess that Palestine had always been partly obscured in a haze of 
semi-mysticism, half earthly, half fairyland; its heroes, demigods, possessing 
some faults, to be sure, but too valiant and too good "for human nature's 
daily food." Now it is as real as the soil of our nativity; its Esdraelo?i 
battleground as real as Valley Forge and Bunker Hill, and Joshua and David 
as real as Washington and Pershing. Its battles were but the contests of 
peoples human as we are, restless under oppression and fighting at the 
behest of an inner urge for country, for God as they conceived Him, ani 
for right as they saw it. Even the beautiful humanity of Jesus stands out 
in a living light of reality hitherto unperceived. We heard again the baby's 
low cry at Bethlehem, followed Him to Nazareth and traveled over Judean 
hills and Galilean pathways His feet had sanctified, wept with the Holy 
Mother beside the cross, and stood with the wondering eleven on Olivet's 
brow, and looked into the same skies His ascending form had entered. 

The contour of the country, its manners and customs, its seasons, its 
harvests, its plants and animals, especially domestic; its streams, wells, 
lakes, hills and valleys, its tombs — all these survive unchanged and over 
them glimmers still the same Syrian sun that set for Jacob at Beeroth, that 
hung above Gibeon for Joshua's convenience, and that rose so often over 
the brow of Neby Sain as He, the skillful young Carpenter, entered His 
shop for the day's toil. All this makes real the Book and the Man of the 



Book and places in one hand of the sincere student a trowel for erecting 
the walls of Truth's temple, and in the other a sword, two-edged, for fighting 
the battles of the Lord. 

Now in reading or discussing an event we see it in its physical setting, 
including relative distances and local coloring. May we not indulge the 
hope that the kind reader will be able to receive in some measure similar 
benefit from the perusal of these vagrant chapters. They have been written 
with primary aim to serve the laity in giving some portion of intelligent 
background for the study of the Bible. Palestine is the Land of the Book 
and the Bible is the Book of the Land and each explains and complements 
the other. 

"Go, little booke, God send thee good passage, 
And specially let this be thy prayere, 
Unto them all that thee will read or hear, 
Where thou are wrong, after their help to call 
Thee to correct, in any part or all." 

Chaucer's Bell Dame sans Mercie. 



Land of the Sky 
Asheville, N. C. 
October, 1922. 



E. R. W. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I Beirut — The Lebanons — Baalbek 1 

II Damascus 15 

III Hauran— Sea of Galilee 27 

IV Mount of Beatitudes — Cana of Galilee 41 

V Nazareth and Esdraelon 51 

VI Dothan — Samaria — Shechem 65 

VII Jacob's Well— Shiloh— Bethel 77 

VIII Entering Jerusalem 87 

IX Mt. Zion— Church of Holy Sepulcher 99 

X The Temple Area 111 

XI The Wailing Place — City's Environs 125 

XII Gethsemane — Olivet — Jerusalem to Jericho 139 

XIII The Jordan— The Dead Sea 153 

XIV Bethlehem — Solomon's Pools — Hebron 165 

XV Palestine, the Old and the New 175 

XVI Going Down Into Egypt . 187 

XVII Gizeh — Heliopolis — Cheops — Sphinx 197 

L'Envoy 205 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Author Frontispiece 

Page 

The Big Stone at Baalbek 5 

Damascus 11 

A Bedouin Family 23 

Sunrise on Galilee 29 

Tiberius by the Lake 33 

Mount of Beatitudes 37 

The Well at Cana 43 

Fountain of the Virgin, Nazareth 53 

Esdraelon 57 

Shechem 69 

Jerusalem and Damascus Gate 79 

The Golden Gate 93 

The Holy Fire 103 

The Mosque of Omar 113 

The Wailing Place 121 

Gordon's Calvary 129 

The Big Tree in Gethsemane 137 

The Mount of Olives 141 

The Jordan River 151 

Bethlehem Today 16? 

The Author in Costume of Sheik 183 

The Sphinx and Old Cheops 201 



CHAPTER I. 
Beirut — The Lebanons — Baalbek. 



CHAPTER I. 

Beirut — The Lebanons — Baalbek. 

My introduction to the land of my pilgi image was strikingly picturesque. 
At Beirut, Syria, our big liner being of too heavy draft to come close to 
the dock anchored some distance away. Hardly had she come to a stand- 
still when there appeared swarming all around us a flotilla of small craft 
that seemed to rise out of the water. Never shall I forget that strange 
picture. Such a motley crowd! Swarthy cheeked men and boys dressed 
in flowing robes of many colors, some with gowns fastened at the waist 
by a loud sash, some with those Asiatic breeches whose posterior bagging 
to the knees would hold the week's washing for an average American family, 
some with European suits snowy white. All woie red tarbousches with black 
tassels. Such a Babel of voices! A multitude of hands waiving frantically, 
pushing, struggling, fighting, to get nearest to the gangway. The New York 
stock exchange is tame compared with this spectacle. Some were there to 
meet tourists whose coming was expected, some to greet returning loved ones 
and old friends — and of such were most of the passengers — ,some to sell 
fruit, some to tiansport baggage. One especially handsome fellow standing 
erect in the piow of a pretty boat flying a red pennant attracted our 
attention. He was a broad shouldered, well dressed man above middle 
life with swarthy cheek and flashing black eye. He wore a blue serge 
European coat over a spotlessly white Asiatic skirt that reached to his 
ankles. With his red tarbousch he was truly red and white and blue. 
Listen. He is speaking perfectly good English. Above the yelling jargon 
he is calling for our party. Stepping from boat to boat we are soon seated 
with him while the expert Syrian oarsmen with measured stroke are pulling 
for the wharf. This man is George I. Jallouk of Jallouk Brothers, pro- 
fessional dragomen, living at Jerusalem. George, as we all affectionately 
called him, was a prince of good fellows, even tempered, kind, attentive, 
considerate, especially chivalrous and thoughtful of our feminine companions. 
He is a tiue Christian gentleman, Episcopal vestryman, and withal the best 
dragoman in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Taking imnu^iate charge of us 
we lacked for nothing. Every arrangement for transportation, entertain- 
ment, and personal convenience had been anticipated. He seemed to know 
everybody; they seemed to know him. His wish was law and to him all 



1 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



doors were open. Fortunate indeed was this bunch of tenderfoots. He 
stayed close by us until the Cleopatra steamed out of Alexandria and our 
last view of the dock revealed dear old George waving fond adieus to his 
departing friends. Our hearts were sad for we might never see him again 
this side the New Jerusalem. May our heavenly Father bless our friend, 
with all his own, and may he be spared to pilot many other groups with 

a-s much efficiency and attention as that accorded to us. - v 

-bf£s^3 & oj sraoo ails bad y^ t &H .ysv/z sm&Szib srnoa bstodoxs H6ob s&i 
Owing to George's influence with the custom officers our baggage wa*. 

unmolested and >sooni we; found ourselves in lovely rooms at the Grand 

Hotel ;de Orient, opening out toward the Mediterranean expanse. Soon 

dinner (lunch) was announced and what with whetted appetites and with 

appetizing fare we did . full- Justi^ tgjt&e; occasion*!.; r ^her^ |s f no- better time 

nor place than this to state that at every pla,ce we tarried, save at Shechem, 

Which was passable, the hotels were surprisingly good and the, appointments 

all one could wish, though the food was too highly seasoned a la Franche. 

The fruit was abundant and* delicious.: 

oi si9v/ sihqS .sloBirnqk Biffi lijiw hs'inqmoo 9 nisi si gsnscfoxs &ooia 

Beirut is the chief seaport of Syria, and is a city of two hundred, thousano 
gsno bsvoi •j;„"i;n*xj'ji9i 399 j^g oi sxrios t o3'J99C[X9 bqw 'Soimo') ssoriw gjgrxs/oj rssrn 
population. It is located on the south side of the beautiful St* George's bay 

on the western slope of the Lebanon mountains and has a lovely situation, 

especially from the harbor view. Here semi-European fashions prevail and 

WO bsJasuis jfisffnacf t>s ! i s 'gnr/ii jboc vjterxq rj to woxq sUi at- "9919 
there are few objects of special interest. 

olobim svoae nam bm&wm Hsw ,M¥9bl#©#8 dbq-io & asw sH, ,noiia9J?3 

On a promontory on the western edge of the city is its mOst valuable 
asset. I refer to the great American College. It was opened in 1863 by Dr; 
Daniel Bliss, who remained till his eightieth year when he was succeeded by 
his son, Dr. Howard Bliss, who, with the loyal assistance of sympathetic 
friends in America, built up an institution in equipment and quality of work 
done that rivals many of our best American institutions. He but recently 
passed away. The lighthouse at the extreme end of the campus is emblematic, 
for this Christian college is a beacon light over all the vast territory between 
the Ural mountains and Abysinia. Its constant student body of one thousand 
or more is made up of all faiths, including Protestants, Greek and Roman 
Catholics, Jews, Druses, Bahias, and mostly Mohammedans. Forth from its 
walls has gone in all these years a steady stream ttf ^iture- and intellectual 
breadth and sympathy that, similar to Robert College at Constantinople, has 
produced a type of leaders who have wonderfully leavened the thinking of 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



all this vast region and is its most promising hope for the future. We met 
its alumni everywhere and their faces would kindle with pride as they volun- 
teered the information of their former connection with this loved institution. 

The American mission has been operating in Syria for a century and 
there are today more than one hundred schools with several thousand students. 
Here at Beirut is a great publishing and Bible house that has been dis- 
seminating western Christian ideals for many years and its influence is potent. 
Do we not see in this an important factor in the plebiscite of 1918 that by 
an overwhelming majority asked that the Syrian mandate be assigned to 
America? That afternoon we visited these institutions and took in the city 
generally as time would permit, making the bazaars where we purchased 
needed toilet articles and our cork hats, for which we had frequent occasion 
to be thankful as we traversed the barren mountainsides and valleys with 
not a single cloud to offer its friendly shade. Save three winter months 
Jupiter Pluvius absents himself from Palestine. Immediately following this 
rainy season is the farming period, when vegetation is luxuriant and flowers 
carpet the earth with profusive variety and richness of color and shade seen 
nowhere else. 

Early next morning we climbed into high powered French autos and struck 
out eastward over the Lebanons toward the ruins of ancient Baalbek. 
Thousands of feet we ascended over beautiful macadam roads built by a 
French company in 1860 as a toll road from Beirut to Damascus. The en- 
gineering was remarkable. The mountains are terraced and mulberry groves, 
olive orchards, and vineyards abound. Once these vast declivities were 
covered with splendid oaks, firs, and forests of cedars unequaled in all the 
world. Here Hiram, king of Tyre, cut the cedar timbers used in the building 
of Solomon's temple, which were conveyed in floats to Joppa and thence over- 
land thirty miles to Jerusalem. From here came the choice ship timbers of 
the Egyptian and Phoenecian navies, as well as the interior furnishings of 
their lordly palaces. Now one looks in vain for these cedar forests. Only 
on Mount Baruk does there remain a grove of four hundred trees, called by 
the Maronite peasants "the Cedars of the Lord." One called "The Guardian" 
seems the patriarch of the four hundred. Its twisted and gnarled trunk, 
topped by an evergreen canopy, betokens that he weight of centuries is upon 
it and the fury of thousands of storms has howled among its branches, and 
yet it stands proudly erect, refusing to bow its kingly head though it stands 



3 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



a lone sentinel over a vanishing race. Grand old monarch! May the de- 
crepitude of age be long in finding you. May you, who doubtless heard the 
echoing ring of Hiram's axmen in the days long gone, be still standing there 
when the stories of our own achievements shall become the hoary legends 
of the past. 

We are now halted at an elevation of 6,825 feet in the pass between Mounts 
Kenneseyeh on the north and Jebel el Baruk on the south. On either side the 
mountain is gashed into wild gorges and hollows. Behind us is Beirut, i 
white spot on a green background, and beyond is the blue Mediterranean sea. 
Before us is the beautiful valley of Coele (hollow) Syria, watered by the 
famed Litani (Leontes) and its tributary creeks. This valley is seventy-five 
miles long and averages ten miles broad. On yon side lie the Anti-Lebanons, 
beyond which is Damascus and the vast desert beyond and beyond. Soon we 
pass Zahleh, a Christian town of 16,000 people, with its vineyards and babbling 
brook, and twenty miles up to the northeast we hasten forward to our im- 
mediate destination, Baalbek, where we arrive at 1 p. m., hot, tired, hungry. 

Baalbek is a town of 5,000 people on an elevated plain near the head- 
waters of the Orentes, which flows northward, and the Leontes, which flows 
southward. Through the town flows a most refreshing stream which, like 
the Abana, at Damascus, soon loses itself beyond the city. The finest orchards 
we found were here, chiefly apricots and large, juicy plums. In the large 
shaded gardens we saw groups of men seeding the golden apricots and rolling 
the pulp into large thin cakes which were dried in the sun, packed into bales, 
and marketed in large quantities for future use as jam, pies, or apricot 
juices. A diminutive water mill in this garden ground the community 
wheat. Before a simple stone hut was a Syrian wife baking loaves or thin 
speckled pancakes. Her oven was an oblong earthenware jar three feet deep 
and two feet in diameter sunken in the ground. In the bottom was a fire 
of wood coals which heated the smooth sides of this oven. The cakes were 
plastered against the walls and quickly baked, and though unseasoned, are 
not unpalatable if eaten hot. After eating a portion of a cake which was 
offered me, I left, smiling my thanks, the only way I knew to express my- 
self, ignorant of the universal expectation of every oriental to re- 
ceive backshish for any service rendered, however trivial, and for none. 
That evening who should appear at the hotel but this woman and describing 
my appearance, which was not difficult, being constructed on Gothic lines of 



4 



The Biggest Stone Ever Quarried by Human Hands. 



"Here lies this Monarch of the Quarries, eloquent of ambitions un 
attained, of enterprises uncompleted." 



5 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



architecture, demanded bakshish for the bread I ate that afternoon, worth 
perhaps in American coin one-fourth of a cent. Gallant George gave her a 
coin and sent her away happy. My fellow tourists never forgot this little 
episode, ever twisting it to suit the occasion until it finally assumed the pro- 
portions of a huge joke with whiskers. I mention it simply to show that 
bakshish is the alpha and omega of oriental travel. The babe is taught 
to lisp it before the word "Mama," and his dying groan is for bakshish* 
"Bakshish opens every door," said a guide to me in Cairo, and it is true- 
Tourists by their maudlin sympathy and indiscriminate gifts have pauperized 
the populace. However the horde of persistent beggars one reads about as 
pestering the tourist are not now in evidence, thanks to the new and rigid 
French and English regime, on the one hand assisting these paupers and 
on the other penalizing their professional and annoying begging. For actual 
service rendered one should always pay. 

Baalbek, the Syrian "City of the Sun," is of remote and uncertain his- 
tory. Situated on the high road of commerce between Tyre, Palmyra, and : 
the farther east, it became a place of wealth and importance. The Greeks 
found it and called it Heliopolis, after the Heliopolis near Cairo, from which 
they imported its gods. The Romans under Antoninus Pius, A. D. 218-22, 
converted it into a gorgeous Pantheon with temples to Jupiter, Venus, 
Bacchus, and other gods and goddesses. The Temple of Jupiter was one of 
the wonders of the world. Constantine destroyed these false worships and 
in 390 A. D. the emperor Theodosias I transformed the temple into a great 
church, which in 748 was sacked by Moslem Arabs and turned into a fort. 
Thereafter it sank into neglect and decay. Yet it is majestic in its ruins. 
The first and most prominent object one sees is a lofty portico of the Temple 
of Jupiter, of six massive and beautiful columns. At a distance these do 
not appear so massive but on a nearer view are colossal. Including foundation 
and architrave they tower 200 feet toward the sky. Each column is made 
of three separate polished shafts joined togeher with invisible clasps of iron. 
Many of these columns are perfectly fluted, this being done after erection 
The Doric, Tuscan, and Corinthian orders of decoration abound. We climbed 
a spiral staircase beside a massive door overhung by a broken arch, the key- 
stone of which was half displaced. We crossed over this arch and up into 
a giant tower with big loopholes. The view from this spot is overwhelming. 
There are fifty acres of colossal ruins; titanic columns piled every way upon 



7 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



each other; stones weighing a thousand tons covering vast courts; towers 
half standing; broken columns leaning against fragments of walls high 
against the sky; great courts hexagonal and rectangular; smaller circular 
temples erected to some minor god; votive tablets, empty niches, and dilapi- 
dated shrines; immense subterranean vaults hundreds of feet long; a city 
of ruined temples in an empire of vanished glory. What a tragic comment 
on the vanity of mere human endeavor and the pursuit of earthly glory. 
Gone are the monarchs at whose command these temples and walls arose. 
Faded into oblivion are their puny achievements. Buried are the tens of 
thousands of slaves cn whose backs arose these lordly towers and walls. The 
demolition of war and the ravages of the inexorable centuries have covered 
the ground with this eloquent wilderness of debris. 

"All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, 
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. 
The forms of men shall be as they had never been; 
The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green; 

% t'fi % % % % $z % % % 

And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more; 
And they shall bow to death who ruled from shore to shore; 
And the great globe itself (so the holy writings tell), 
With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell 
Shall melt with fervent heat — they shall all pass away, 
Except the love of God which shall live and last for aye." 

(Bryant.) 

Perhaps the object of chief interest to the tourists is the cyclopen wall. 
Here twenty feet above ground are three big stones averaging 63 feet in 
length, 12 by 14, each estimated to weigh 1,200 tons, and are the largest 
stones ever used in human architecture. How they were transported a mlie 
from the quarry and elevated twenty feet above ground can only be surmised 
by considering the vast numbers of laborers available and the known appli- 
cation of mechanical means for proportionate distribution of weight. It is 
supposed that a gigantic causeway gradually inclined upward and upon this 
the stones were slidden. In turn the decoration was begun at the top and 
continued downward as the causeway was removed. One mile distant there 
lies in the quarry one stone more colossal than all the rest. It is 71 feet 
long, 14 by 17, and weighs 1,800 tons, estimated, and is the biggest stone 
ever quarried by human hands. It is not quite detached from its base. No 
one can opine its contemplated location or explain the manner of its trans- 
portation. Here lies this monarch of the quarries unmoved by the vicissitudes 

8 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



of the revolving centuries, eloquent of ambitions unattained, of enterprises 
incompleted. No tourist can afford to visit Syria without Baalbek, and no 
Baalbek visitor will fail to pay his compliments to this prostrate king of 
human architecture. 



SDAMLSOJM EHITBaJAl A 



to 9o£T*BOTq sirf} <tf s^nsrf'Hqmoo giil ^£q | 



The City of Damascus, Mother of Cities, Gateway of the East, City of 
Minarets and Musical Muezzins, of Unflagging Interest and 
Unflagging Change and Charm. 



11 



CHAPTER II. 
Damascus. 



CHAPTER II. 



Damascus. 

Over the Antilebanons from Baalbek we journeyed with a crippled motor 
and an enforced wait of two hours at Reyak while our Syrian chauffeur got 
down and under. Here were trees and orchards and a fine transparent 
stream, a branch of the Litani. Thence we descended on a winding road 
through Zebadani where we first met the Barada (the Abana of II Kings 5:12), 
thence through a beautiful valley. We passed a recent battlefield where, 
owing to the well stationed guns of one of General Allenby's divisions, the 
mountain gorge was filled with dead Turkish soldiers. Twenty-three well 
kept graves in a little military cemetery indicated the number of English 
fatalities. Soon we passed through Dummar, the summer resort of rich 
Damascenes, and now we suddenly emerge into the open and gaze for the 
first time on the age old city of Damascus, mother of cities, gateway of 
the east, city of minarets and of musical muezzins, of unflagging interest 
and kaleidoscopic change and charm. Out from a sea of green rise num- 
erous domes and minarets — upstanding sentinels of a cruel pagan faith 
and ultra fanatic zeal. 

Damascus is called the "Mother of cities" because it has the oldest con- 
tinuous existence of any city on earth. Jerusalem in the days of Melchizedek 
was perhaps older, yet there was a time from A. D. 70 to A. D. 130 when 
it was naught but a pile of forsaken ruins. Tradition says that Damascus 
was founded by Uz, the son of Canaan, the grandson of Noah whose descend- 
ants after the flood peopled the fertile and picturesque Lebanons and later 
the plains of Syria and became the supposed ancestors of the Syrian people. 
The first mention we have of the city is in Gen. 14 where it is stated that 
Eliezer, Abraham's steward, dwelt there, giving it an antiquity of at least 
4,000 years. Heroditus says it is older than Abraham. After passing suc- 
cessively under the dominion of the Israelites, Persians, Greeks, and Ro- 
mans, it fell at last in 1516 into the hands of the Turks where it remained 
till 1918. 

It is called the "Gateway of the East" because the main highway of the 
ages from Messapotamia, Persia, and the vast east, to Tyre, the Mediterran- 
ean coast cities, and to Egypt passed through Damascus. It is still an im- 



15 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



portant caravan route, although the Bagdad railway, connected at Aleppo 
with Damascus and Beirut, handles much of this commerce. Yet many long 
and picturesque caravan trains slowly creep across the stretches of the desert 
route laden with the cashmeres, the carpets, and riches of the east. To say 
that we saw hundreds of caravans is not an extravagance. 

It is called the "City of Minarets" because out of a population of 300,000, 

three fourths of them are Mohammedans. Hence the city is filled with 

mosques and towering minarets and from each minaret five times a day the 

muezzin chants his cry out over the city, "Allah Akbar, Allah akbar," etc., 

"To prayers, to prayers, O ye followers of Allah. There is but one God 

and Mohammed is his prophet." At once a truth and a lie. Within 100 
feet of our room in the Damascus Palace hotel there was a mosque. At 5 
A. M., the first call floated out over the city. From minaret to minaret the 
sound was caught up and in a trice the whole city was vibrant with the call 
from 300 minarets. Description of its impressiveness is impossible. These 
muezzins are trained from childhood and are often blind, since their eleva- 
tion above the city could enable them to see too much of the home life. 
Their tenor voices are mellow and sonorious. It floats out like the sad 
wail of a lost soul. Indeed it is the wail of a lost multitude, numbering to- 
day two hundred and fifty millions, too blind to see the light and too fanat- 
ically arrogant to admit its lost estate. Mohammedanism presents the 
hardest problem for Christian missions to solve. Yet it will be solved. Here 
in Damascus in 1860 six thousand Christians were murdered and twenty 
thousand were exiled from their homes. But today one may not fear. The 
times are changing and French soldiers are everywhere in evidence. All the 
mosques are open for inspection provided you pull on big flapping overshoes 
and are liberally supplied with bakshish. We did not see here or elsewhere 
many worshippers. In 1914 Dr. Rowland, our conductor, was here and he 
is of the opinion that they have decreased more than fifty per cent during 
that time. The Great Mosque, or Omalyade, is the only one worth visiting. 
It is one of the four famous mosques of the Moslem world, the other three 
being the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, the Alabaster Mosque at Cairo, and 
the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople. All but the last mentioned we 
visited. The Great Mosque is of uncertain history. At first it was a Chris- 
tian church, then a heathen temple, and at last a Moslem Mosque. A noble 



16 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



inscription on the south door dating from its earliest usage has remained 
unmolested. It is a quotation of Psalms 145:13: "Thy kingdom, O Christ, 
is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth forever." It has 
escaped the deletion of moslem fanaticism because it is carved in Greek and 
they could not interpret it. Some day it will disappear. But its sentiment 
is true and ominously prophetic of the final ascendency of the cross over 
the crescent. Outwardly the building is unprepossessive but is inwardly 
elegant. The marble floors are covered with finest Persian rugs forty feet 
square worth $50,000 each. These are donated by the Sultans and ruling 
Caliphs of the past and present. Each on coming into power is expected 
to make a princely donation to one or all of the leading mosques. It was 
partially destroyed by fire in 1893 but the walls still show mother-of-peari 
inlaid work of marvelous beauty on a background of mahogany. The ma- 
jestic dome with a million lines of mosaic tracery of vines and foliage beg- 
gars all description. On the north wall are glass mosaics as old as the tenth 
century. In the transept of a chapel is the reputed tomb of John the Bap- 
tist, whose head, said to have been found by the conqueror Khalid in the 
crypt of the old church, lies buried here. Above the gorgeous tomb hangs 
a golden crescent. However, there is no evidence whatever as to this claim. 
The surprising thing is that Moslems should thus revere a Christian Saint. 
But the oriental is deeply religious and reverential. Mohammed placed 
Jesus next to him in a line of great prophets and teachers. And the super- 
stitious reverence for Mohammed and his celebrated feats enables them to 
give partial credence to the miraculous performances of Jesus. Hence with 
fanatical zeal they have preserved inviolate many of the sacred places of 
Palestine and have gone so far as to manufacture many others ascribed to 
lesser saints. Catholicism, Greek and Roman, has done likewise and to 
these two divergent faiths is due the paradoxical fostering and preserva- 
tion of sacred shrines and relics, real and imaginary. 

The beauty of Damascus is proverbial. It is a pearl with emerald setting, 
a wilderness of fragrant bloom and luscious fruitage where olive and pome- 
granate, orange and apricot, plum, fig, olive and walnut, commingle their 
shades of green. The city is the lordly gift of the Barada, as Egypt is the 
gift of the Nile. The Barada rises 23 miles to the north west of the city. 
It gushes out from the side of a limestone mountain and plunges to the 
desert below. At Damascus it divides into seven streams. Artificial aqae- 



17 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



ducts carry its waters to every garden and home in the city. Virtually all 
of its water is consumed and but a few miles due east the meager rem- 
nant loses itself in the sands of the near-by desert. How like the true Chris- 
tian life in its abundant self-giving and self-losing. 

We stood on a platform made in 1898 for the German Kaiser to 
stand upon to view the city. It is on the southwestern edge and partially 
up the side of the mountain. From here the city takes the shape 
of a spoon, the long handle protruding two miles to the southeast. The 
white buildings appearing among the groves of gieen remind one of an 
emerald scarf splashed with alabaster. Just behind and above us is Moham- 
med's landing place where he won the world's championship for broad and high 
jumping. It is recounted to you in all seriousness that he came to Kasum, 
12 miles to the east of the city, and from the rocky hill there he saw Da- 
mascus for the first time. He remarked that it was not given to any man 
to behold but one Paradise and that he preferred the heavenly one. Closing 
his eyes he sprang into the air, leaped over the city and landed on the 
top of Jeb Kaysem, 1,000 feet high. That was some jump, worthy of a 
special edition of the Saturday Blade but as far as the limited knowledge 
of the writer goes that famous sheet has ignored this remaikable feat. One 
is reminded of an instance that occurred in west Texas. A cyclone had de- 
molished a man's home and had blown him twenty miles in less t.me than 
it takes to tell it. Strange to say he was not killed. Next day his pastor 
found him and remarked: "Brother, I trust the good Lord was with you." 
The man replied: "Well, if he was he sure was going some." So was brother 
Mohammed. 

But by far the most fascinating feature of Damascus is its versatile hu- 
man life and its accompaniments. Here are native Syrians in abundance, of 
course, but also Nubians, Egyptians, Jews, Persians with bales of costly 
merchandise, swarthy bedouins with their camels, tourists with cork hats, 
French soldiers in unifoim, men and women, old and young, children well 
dressed and tattered, all jostling along the narrow streets. Add to this 
human throng the many plucky little donkeys with burdens heavier than 
their own weight, camels wabbling along patiently, if not gracefully, with 
astonishingly large cargoes, sheep and goats, dogs and chickens. Consider 
also the endless variety of garments of all the colors of Joseph's coat, of all 
fashions and of none — shawls, coats, long and short, oriental and western. 



18 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



heavy overcoats in tropical noon, trouseurs bagging down behind unspeak- 
ably grotesque, turbans, tarbousches, western straws, tourists hats; Mos- 
lem women in black with veiled faces, their black bewitching eyes peeking 
out from under the lifted corner of the veil as you pass, and wearing red slip- 
pers, tan hosiery, and ankle bracelets. Think of the babel of discordant sounds 
— the cucumber barker with his donkey, the camel driver shouting "Yallah, 
yallah," the candy seller with his tray, the bread seller crying "Ya karim, 
ya karim" — "Gift of the bountiful one." The water carrier artfully rat- 
tling his brass cups, crying out "Ishrub ya' atshan, Ishrub ya' atshan" — 
"Drink, O thirsty"; the old clothes auctioneer crying his sales, the postcard 
hawker and the antique waresman — all this mingled with the bleating of 
sheep and goats, the crowing of cocks, the growl of the camels, the 
bark of the dogs, the horn of the busses, the rattling of their wheels over 
the cobble stones, and above it all the muezzin's call "to prayers, to pray- 
ers" — all this and much more gives but a faint moving picture of Damas- 
cus life. 

One never tires of making the Bazarrhs where everything is sold from 
a jack-knife to a camel. All the stores handling a certain article are seg- 
regated. For instance, all the silk stores are in the silk bazarrh. There 
are bazarrhs for" the sale of carpets, saddlery and harness, old clothes, sil- 
ver and jewelry, tobacco, including pipes, footwear, and many others. The 
stores are mere stalls on the side of these narrow streets. The doors 
disappear, either pushed into the side or raised upward, leaving the whole 
front open. The goods are piled on the floor and on shelves. The merchant 
sits cross-legged on the floor indifferently smoking his tchibouk. The mo- 
ment you pause to inspect an article he is all vivacity and politeness, and 
you will not escape without a purchase. Should you really wish to buy a;i 
article you are in for a barrel of fun. Be prepared for a price five times whai 
he will finally accept. You feign indifference, shake your head, lift your 
hands in holy horror at such a price, and start away_ He follows and drops 
the price. Back and forth you have it. He finally puts the article away 
In injured innocence. Be not discouraged. The article is yours. You may 
be allowed to get fifty feet away, but he will soon be tugging .at your sleeve 
with the article in his hands. He has reconsidered and since you will be in 
the city several .days and will doubtless call to see him several times and 
will influence others to do likewise, he will condescend to accommodate you 



19 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



with this rare bargain, assuring you that many such deals will make of 
him a pauper. Don't worry as to that. He has made a large profit. 

There are so many beautiful and elegant articles one would purchase; th<3 
most exquisite lace and embroidery, filigree silver work, brass and inlaid 
mosaics unexcelled in all the world, carpets by the acre, rugs worth a 
thousand dollars, bric-a-brac of all kinds, — but means are limited, as is also 
the amount of baggage, and the United States custom duties are prohibi- 
tive. 

Our visit to the celebrated brass works was most enjoyable. Rare artist3 
were tracing delicate lines of carving, or inlaying on finest wood and 
metal, mother-of-pearl and silver wire. Everything is made from a ciga- 
rette case to a bed room suite. Our pleasure was marred by the spectacle 
of 100 little orphans from a near-by Syrian orphanage who were laboring 
with great industry and expertness and lifting up on their little backs the 
vast fortune of this Syrian gentleman (?) who has become a millionaire. 
No wonder their little hands reached out to us and their little voices stam- 
mered "backshish, backshish." We were taken into this man's house. Ic 
was a palace that would fit into some of the descriptions of Arabian Nights. 

The street called Straight, the most famous street in the orient, bisects 
the city, running due east and west for one mile. In the palmy days of 
Roman occupation this ancient Champs Elysees was a wide and elegant- 
boulevard paved and bordered with parks and colonades behind which were 
the dwellings of the rich and prosperous. On this boulevard dwelt Judas:, 
the friend of Saul of Tarsus, and the location of his residence on this 
street establishes his financial and social rating and is an incidental com- 
ment on the status of the cultured deciple of the renowned Gamaliel. Today 
the street is narrow and dark. It is covered over for some distance with 
American galvanized iron in semi-oval form with occasional openings for 
light and ventilation. An ancient Roman triple gate, called St. Paul's Gate, 
is the eastern terminus. Two of the three are closed. Inside and near this 
gate is the Christian Quarter, plain and unpretentious, while just outside and 
to the north of this gate is shown the house of Naaman the Captain of the 
hosts of Asyria, whose leprosy was immediately cured by obedience to the 
command of the prophet Elisha. This site is now a leper colony. South of 
this gate on the dilapidated wall is shown the house and window through 



20 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



which Saul escaped from the wrath of the governor under King Aretas. De- 
spite the flight of twenty centuries you are expected to believe that this is 
the identical house and window, even the iron crossbars that cover it. Saul 
must have been a pygmy indeed. These openings are not more than eight 
inches square at best. Across the road is a fine walled garden of Englisn 
walnuts in which is shown the tomb of St. George of dragon slaying fame. 
He is said to have assisted in Saul's escape, perhaps holding the twine 
string on which the lunch basket containing this little man was fastened. 
St. George seems to have been buried also at Lydda, perhaps at other places. 
Requiescat in Pace. Inside the gate and on the east side of a short street 
to the north is the house of Ananias, whom the Lord sent to lead the future 
apostle into the light. Strange to relate, no one offered for sale any of the 
scales from Saul's eyes. The supply was presumably exhausted, pro tern. 
This house of Ananias is a small Catholic chapel some twenty feet under 
ground. Many great men have visited Damascus in its long and varied 
history, but none who have so mightily affected the stream of human thought 
and life as Saul of Tarsus. Many great events have transpired within its 
walls, but none so potent and significant to the unfolding centuries as the 
conversion of this brilliant and scholarly personality. For he, by his heroic 
life and prolific sacred writings, has typed the religious thought and life 
of the ages and will continue to do so in ever increasing measure until the 
kingdoms of this world shall become, as he predicted, the kingdoms of our 
God and his Christ. In that grand consummation you and I, dear reader, 
may have an humble portion if we will. 



21 



ft.* 




A Typical Bedouin Family 

"Before their black goat's hair tent which can ba struck and away in 
thirty minutes." 



23 



CHAPTER III. 

Hauran — Sea of Galilee, 



CHAPTER III. 
Hauran — Sea of Galilee. 



After several days in this oldest and strangest of cities, every moment 
of which was thrillingly fascinating, we boarded the French railway train ac 
the Beramke station for the Sea of Galilee. The trains run tri-weekly. 
There are three classes of coaches. The first is fairly comfortable, the second 
is barely passable, the third is unthinkable. George had arranged first- 
class passage and a big basket of lunch with good water and at seven a. m. 
we slowly pulled out of Damascus. Nine hours later we detrained at our 
immediate destination. The proverbial "slow train through Arkansas" must 
yield the palm to this Hauran road. We stopped at every camel path and 
crossing, once to let a bunch of camels get off the track and once to ac- 
commodate a baby donkey. However, our company was congenial and jovial 
and the Hauran plains, ancient Bashan, were interesting. They resemble 
the plains of west Texas and are the grain producing areas of Syria. Once 
they were covered with forests of magnificent oaks and dotted with populous 
cities. Here reigned Og, king of Bashan, and here bellowed the "bulls of 
Bashan" of Ps. 26, the Scriptural type of unreined ambiion and cruelty. 
This is the "Desert of Arabia" to which Saul resorted for three years. See 
Gal. 1. It was a land of beauty and of great productivity. The Rephaim or 
giants peopling this vast region terrified Israel constantly. High walls and 
barred gates surrounded the cities. Its conquest was begun by Moses at 
Edrei and completed by Jair many years later in the capture of Argob. 
Literally tens of thousands of camels graze these plains. The Bedouin camel 
herder pays the Hauran farmer for the privilege of grazing the wheat stubble 
which he formerly confiscated. At all the stations apparently the whole 
population met the train and we had ample opportunity to scrutinize them. 
The road runs near the desert and these were typical Arabs. They are usually 
smiling and in friendly humor but are capable of great treachery and cruelty. 
Above is shown the picture of a typical Bedouin family before their black 
goat's hair tent, which can be struck and away in thirty minutes. The 
father is reasonably prosperous and the mother would be considered a Bedouin 
beauty. These desert women as a rule are slovenly, haggard, and un- 
attractive, and the proverbial raven haired beauty with dark eyes, pearly 
teeth, and hypnotic charm exists mostly in the novels. Her slavish devotion 

27 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



to her lord with the austerities of desert life has left the disfiguring marks 
upon her form and feature. I am reminded of the story of Abdalla. He was 
a young sheik and according to prevailing custom his wife was selected by 
the elders of his tribe. In this instance she was the daughter of a distant 
sheik and Abdalla had never seen her. She was brought to the village and 
assigned a tent next that of her bridegroom. Soon after he visited her he 
emerged from her tent wailing at the heighth of his voice and laying hand- 
f uls of dirt upon his disconsolate head. A neighbor sheik had come over to 
felicitate him and found him thus lamenting. All Abdalla would say to him 
was, "O, you just ought to see her, you just ought to see her." "Cheer up, 
cheer up," said his friend, "it surely is not so bad as all that." Abdalla 
pointed to the tent and said, "0, you just ought to see her. Go lift the flap 
of the tent and look upon her." The friend did so and came back. All he 
had to say was, "Lay on more dirt, Abdalla, lay on more dirt." 

Reaching Mezerib at two p. m., we took a branch line leading to Haifa, 
a port on the Mediterranean coast north of Joppa, leaving the train at 
Semakh on the southeast shore of the Sea of Galilee. Soon we began a 
tortuous descent of more than three thousand feet in the sixty miles, fol- 
lowing the river Yarmuk, which enters the Jordan five miles south of the 
sea. The engineering of this descent is of the very finest. Through twenty 
tunnels in as many miles, creeping along the lim of a mountain, spanning 
high bridges, past beautiful cascades, down, down we dropped toward Galilee 
six hundred eighty feet below sea level. These jagged, chasmic basalt hills 
were streaked with paths made by the feet of many flocks which we con- 
tinuously saw grazing on the dry grass or resting under the side of a hill by 
some quiet pool, reminding us forcibly of the twenty-third Psalm. Many 
of these paths led upward to some cave in the mountainside which is the 
sheepfold of these wild regions. Soon we pass Umkeis, the Gadara of Christ's 
day, situate on a high hill above our heads, over a high bridge which had 
recently been partially burned by Arabs, and at four p. m. we sweep into w 
pretty little plain and gaze for the first time on "sweet Galilee where Jesus 
loved so much to be," the object of our pleasurable anticipations. As we 
beheld it our hearts filled with emotion and our eyes with tears. Board- 
ing a naphtha launch carrying a hundred passengers we were soon skipping 
over its cobalt bosom with a chug-chug that made one think of home. 

Apart from its associations this, the world's most celebrated body of 



28 






Sunrise on Galilee. 

"The whole face of the cloud shone with amber and gold and crimson 
and it appeared as a crystal screen holding back the sapphire depths of the 
glory world insistent on breaking through for our especial delight." 



29 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 

water, would be beautiful indeed, but considering its intimate relation to the 
Man of Galilee who performed most of his works upon or around it, its 
physical beauty becomes enhanced and spiritualized and incomparable. It is 
five miles in width and thirteen in length, is of pear shape, the large part 
being at the upper or northern end. It is simply a wide place in the Jordan, 
which, including the Dead Sea and the intervening sixty miles of valley, is 
but an ancient split in the geological formation and is the deepest ditch in 
the world. It rises thirty-two miles north and at the ancient Bethsaida 
enters the sea with its dark muddy stream to leave it thirteen miles south 
clear and sparkling. The sea is surrounded by hills a thousand feet high 
that slope away from the shore line in every direction. At the time of our 
visit these hills were barren and somber and gray, but in the springtime 
they are clothed with luxuriant verdure bespeckled with many varieties of 
bloom. As we sailed under the western shore the sun was disappearing and 
the opposite hills took on tfte tints of lilac and lavender and brown. 

"The gathering orange stain 
Upon the edge of yonder western peak 
Reflects the sunsets of a thousand years." 

This ride of an hour and a half will be treasured forever. 

Reaching Tiberius we were assigned to pleasing rooms and soon came 
supper. A long table spanning a spacious dining hall was laden with fruit, 
chiefly figs, fried chicken, and fish just taken from the Lake. Tell it not in 
Gath, but for once in a lifetime this Methodist itinerant turned down fried 
chicken. Who would not have done so? Fried chicken is to be had any day 
at home, but once only came the opportunity of eating fish from the Sea of 
Galilee. It seemed that never were fish so palatable or figs so delicious. 

After a swim in the lake we were ready for sweet repose. Our room 
opened out on a balcony overlooking the sea and close to it. A lone bright 
star hanging near the dark hilltops on yon side sent a silver pencil of light 
across the placid surface as if 'twould keep watch above us while we slept. 
At early dawn we arose and taking our Bibles sat on the balcony. We tried 
to image some of the wonderful events that had transpired within the range 
of our vision. Just out there some three miles before us He stilled the 
tempest and again came walking upon its waves. Just on the other side He 
healed the Gadarene demoniac and to the north on yon sloping hillside He 
fed the multitudes, while in the solitudes of those adjacent hills He prayed. 



31 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



On this side and to our left He called James and John from their net mend- 
ing and Andrew and Peter frcm their fishing, and later, on an early morning 
like this, He stood on the beach beside a fire of coals and recommissioned 
Peter to the apostleship. Somewhere up there near old Magdala He sat 'n 
a boat and addressed the people, giving them the beautiful Parables of 
Matthew 13, and not far from shore occurred the miraculous draft of fishes. 
Up there at old Capernaum Peter caught the single fish with the coin in its 
mouth for the tribute money. On and on imagination played upon the 
scenes of Sacred Story. A cloud of some proportions hung low and rested 
upon the hilltops of the opposite shore just above the traditional site of 
the Feeding of the Five Thousand. While we meditated a silver ribbon 
kindled on its outer rim soon widening into a lucid band. Then the thin 
places in the cloud became suffused with radiance. Then its whole face 
shone with amber and gold and crimson and the cloud appeared as a crystal 
screen holding back the sapphire depths of the glory world insistent on 
bursting through for our special delight. Then slowly the curtain parted 
in the midst as though some angel hand were opening wide the gates for 
the triumphant entrance of a king. As the cloud became attenuated shafts 
of golden light bathed the hillside location of the miracle while imagination 
filled it once again with orderly multitude sitting in companies while He 
blessed and brake and fed. Our hearts filled with holy thoughts and loftiest 
impulses and we then and there rededicated our feeble powers to a sincerer 
execution of that high commission embodied in the miracle, that most privi- 
leged one of feeding the hungry multitudes of today with the ever satisfying 
Bread of Life. 

"I saw Him walk beside a sea, 

Caught like a gem in gold, 
Where bloomed the hills of Galilee 

So storied, grim, and old. 

"Follow me," I heard Him cry; 

I saw the stalwart men; 
I read the answer in each eye, 

Such as had never been. 

"Follow me," they left the ship; 

They sought another sea; 
Where scarlet sails of victory dip 

Beyond the melting lea. 

32 



Tiberius by the Lake. 
"The finest shore view is shown here. 



33 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Two thousand years have coursed the tide; 

The nets; the boat; the crew; 
All these have passed; the ocean wide 

Sings of the ships it knew. 

But shrank they from the cup of pain 

Fresh from the purple press? 
Or did they leave the lake in vain, 

To toil for treasures less? 

They bore a flame to farthest isle 

Across the dusky bar; 
And wait the dream-girt golden while 

Beyond the evening star." 

(John Jordan Douglas.) 

Tiberius was built A. D. 20 by Herod Antipas and dedicated to the Em- 
peror Tiberius, for whom it was named. It became the chief city of the 
province of Galilee and was adorned by handsome structures, including a 
royal palace and amphitheater. Jesus never visited it and the city is 
mentioned but once and incidentally in the New Testament. The Jews hated 
it intensely and very naturally because it was a Roman city built by Herod. 
Yet after the fall of Jerusalem they flocked to it. In the second century 
the Sanhedrin sat here and with it a Rabbinical school. Here the Mishna, 
the repository of Jewish tradition, was published. Fragments of ancient 
walls and aqueducts remain and some old bronzed doors with exquisite 
carvings testify to its ancient elegance. In 1837 an earthquake destroyed 
the city. Today it contains five thousand population, mostly Jews. The 
streets are narrow and filthy. It has been said that "the king of the fleas 
holds his court in Tiberius," but our hotel was clean and comfortable and 
beyond criticism. From Tiberius the finest shore view of the lake is af- 
forded, though the view from Karn Hattin is more extensive. At the north 
end where the Jordan enters is the site of Bethsaida, the home of Andrew 
and Peter and Philip, and probably John. Two miles northwest among the 
hills is Chorazin, while on the shore toward us is Capernaum, the second 
home and operating center of Jesus. Nearer us is the fertile plain of 
Genessaret, a mile wide. Then comes Magdala, the home of Mary Magdalene. 
Next is Dalmanutha, then Tiberius, and just below us to the south are the 
Hot Springs, much frequented by rheumatics. Chinnareth is just beyond. 
Eight other towns with these seven ranged around the border of the lake, 



35 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



which, in the days of Jesus, according to Josephus, averaged fifteen thousand 
population each. "The sea was covered with vessels engaged in traffic and 
fisheries, and its shores were dotted with cities and villages." It was called 
"the unparalleled garden of God." Renan speaks of it as "a country very 
green and full of shade and pleasantness, the true country of the Canticles 
and the Psalms of the well beloved." Of all the above fifteen cities Tiberius 
alone remains. The others are but piles of ruins with an occasional family 
living in some rude hut. Even the location of most of them is problematic. 
Here was spent the major part of Christ's busy ministry. His feet trod the 
angry waves and His fiat hushed them into silence. Up and down its populous 
shores He "went about doing good," and each grain of sand and each drop 
of water here is filled with sacred sentiment and holiest associations. 



36 



The Mount of Beatitudes. 

"Twin peaks with a considerable depression between them stand out 
clear outline and can be seen for miles away." 



3r> 
I 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mount of Beatitudes and Cana of Galilee. 



CHAPTER IV. 
Mount of Beatitudes and Cana of Galilee, 

Two miles west from Tiberius and 1050 feet above the lake level is the 
Mount of the Beatitudes, or the Horns of Hattin. Twin peaks with a con- 
siderable depression between them stand out in clear outline and can be 
seen for miles away. A short distance off is a large flat stone lying in 
amphitheater shape. Here the Crusaders fixed the location of the Sermon 
on the Mount which Dean Stanley said "met all the requirements of the 
gospel narrative." On an adjoining plain to the south, July 3, 1187, the 
army of the Moslem general Saladin defeated the European Crusaders 
under Guy De Lusignon when the Cross fell finally before the Crescent and 
the Christian kingdom cf Judea became "one with Ninevah and Tyre.'* 
This plain, which appears in the accompanying picture, lies beautifully and 
is being cultivated by Zionist colonists who are using modern agricultural 
methods. It is notable that the only modern farming implement seen was 
near this point. It was a sulky plow drawn by two good farm horses. It 
is a prophecy of what Zionists expect to do all over the Holy Land. Here 
is afforded the finest panoramic view of the sea "set like a gem in gold" 
and a large area of Galilee province. Eastward lie the mountains of 
Ephraim and the region of old Decapolis. To the south are the mountains 
of Samaria with Tabor lifting its cone shaped peak a thousand feet from 
the Esdraelon plain. To the east is Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean. 
To the north are the Anti-Lebanons with old Hermon, the most probable 
scene of the Transfiguration, lifting its snow-crested, glistening brow nearly 
ten thousand feet into the firmament. Near its base is the old city of 
Caesarea Philippi, the most northern point of Christ's ministry, save an in- 
definite reference to a brief visit into "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon." Nearby 
us to the north and a thousand feet still higher is the town of Safed with a 
long and continuous existence. It stands out white against the mountainside 
on which it is situated and is doubtless the "city set upon a hill that can- 
not be hid." The Jews believed that the Messiah would rise out of the 
waters of the lake, land in Tiberius, and assume his throne in Safed. 

The situation of the Mount of Beatitudes is central. Here might as- 
semble the multitudes from the fifteen cities surrounding the lake and the 
ten cities beyond it, from Safed and the forested regions of Galilee as far 
north as Mount Hermon and Caesarea, and even as far south as Jerusalem. 



41 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Here the kingly Lawgiver issued his proclamation, his Magna Charta, the 
laws of his Realm, the Kingdom of God, of Heaven, the laws by which men 
and nations will some day live righteously, and the laws by which men and 
nations will some day be judged righteously. Looking downward from this 
elevated post we see for the last time the waters of the opaline sea in their 
deep basin 1,050 feet below with its wavelets crisping into foam under the 
wand of the morning breeze. Good-bye, "Sweet Galilee," with your pebbly 
beaches, your deserted mounds, your basaltic hills, your restful quietude, 
your poetic suggestiveness. We are loathe to depart. You have in this 
brief visit done much for us, but most of all you have made the Christ in- 
tensely real and His words and works more precious to our hearts. We 
turn away with sadness, yet there is much more to see. 

Twelve miles southwest is Cana (Kefr Kenna) and to that objective we 
are traveling. For the next three days we are aboard open three-seated 
hacks with canopy tops, drawn each by three good Arabian horses. We 
have selected this mode for its slowness, affording opportunity at will to 
stop and observe, and also for reading our Bibles as we ride. The roads 
are good all the way to Jerusalem, which we will reach three days later. 
We continually saw squads of laborers, both men and women, breaking 
the rocks with hammeis, carrying them in baskets on head or shoulder, and 
repairing the roadbeds. At one point we saw a modern road machine. From 
Hattin we crossed a ridge of hills and then out upon a level plain beautiful 
and fertile. We passed several small villages and about noon we came in 
sight of Cana. In the edge of the town was a community threshing floor 
with its many great piles of wheat straw and yokes of black oxen going 
around and around drawing flat-bottomed sleds. The bottom of the floor *s 
of smooth stone and the feet of the animals, usually oxen, sometimes 
donkeys, sometimes oxen and donkeys, cut the straw into fragments, the 
grain settling to the floor. The straw is used as provender for the beasts 
of burden. Later the grain is winnowed from "the chaff which the wind 
driveth away." The writer approached a Syrian thresher and by gesticula- 
tion asked for the privilege of driving the oxen. It was cheerfully granted. 
It looked to be dead easy. But the oxen circled around a couple of times 
and virtually all the straw was piled high around the driver and then the 
oxen deliberately refused to go further and turned their heads to the driver 
and looked straight at him as much as to ask, "What fool is this come to 
Cana?" Observation (1). Many things which look to be easy are not so. 



42 




The Well at Cana of Galilee. 

"From here came the water that 'saw its god and blushed.' The one 
authentic spot in Cana." 



43 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



There is an art in doing the simplest things. Observation (2). In traveling 
abroad don't be too anxious to take on too many thrills. For instance, at 
Beirut immediately on landing, even before going to the hotel, the writer 
gave a street vendor a genuinely good United States nickle for a Syrian 
soft drink from a goat skin bag. It might have been dog skin. In fact 
from odor and taste I affirm it was. It had the flavor of camphor, asaf oetida, 
billygoat, and Damascus dog all in one. A sip was sufficient for the whole 
tour. Adjoining the threshing floor there is a large characteristic cactus 
fence or hedge. The fences in Palestine are either cactus or rock walls. 
Rocks are everywhere but cactus grows naturally and without labor. Further- 
more it produces large, juicy, prickly pears in abundance, which are eaten 
by the people with a relish. A sharp hooked blade on the end of a statf 
dexterously wielded gathers the fruit and it is peeled from the end of 'a 
fork so as to avoid the multitude of minute needles. 

Kefr Kenna is a clean town of 1000 people with square stone houses. R 
was the home of Nathaniel and many fig trees of great size and shade still 
afford retreats where one might read and meditate. Jesus was here when 
He healed the Centurion's servant at Capernaum, fifteen miles away. But 
it is most famed because it was here that the "first miracle that He wrought" 
was performed when at His will "the conscious water saw its God and 
blushed" into the best wine at the last of the feast. We can never be too 
thankful for that first miracle, for it not only teaches how simple things 
under His touch are raised to sublime value and significance, but sanctifies 
marriage and sweetens human life by His presence and mixture in the 
glad festivities of a marriage feast. Two Catholic churches, Greek and 
Roman, dispute the site of the miracle. In the Greek church are shown two 
large water pots as the identical vessels used on that occasion. The room 
purporting to be the scene of the marriage is shown with crude pictures of 
the event daubed on the walls. Of course this claim is groundless and the 
building is comparatively modern. However, as we left the town we passed 
one authentic spot at least. It was the well from which the water was taken 
for the miracle. It is and ever has been the only well in the town. As we 
came to it the women were there with their water pots. 

Kefr Kenna is not a town of such importance today as to justify dwelling 
upon it with such length, but to our party a most beautiful episode occurred 
there that we shall always treasure as one of the radiant spots of our 
pilgrimage. In 1914 Rev. J. M. Rowland, now of Richmond, Va., our geniai 

45 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



and capable conductor, was in Palestine over our identical route. His home 
congregation had presented him with a Bible which, of course, he highly 
prized and which was his constant companion. Leaving his conveyance for 
some little side trip the Bible was stolen. He never expected to hear from 
it again. The war came on and its loss had been reconciled. In 1919 he re- 
ceived a letter from a Syrian girl of Cana stating that she had bought the 
Bible from a Turk for a few piasters, hoping to preserve it for the owner, 
whose name and address appeared on the fly leaf. Mr. Rowland immediately 
wrote her to forward it to him, enclosing a nice contribution, and requesting 
a long letter as to herself, her plans, her family, etc., which letter he duly 
received. It turned out that she, Monera Saffouri, was one of three chil- 
dren of the only Protestant Christian family in Cana and for many years 
her ancestors had been faithful Christians under great persecutions. At 
the time of our visit Monera was seventeen, her older sister Karemy nine- 
teen, and her younger brother was fifteen. The two girls had been students 
in the Protestant Episcopal Mission School at Jerusalem and Karemy was 
then teaching in the local school. The war had interrupted their further 
education. Monera was in 1914 but a child but her letter, so well composed 
and so neatly written, indicated a bright mind and beautiful character. She 
turned out to be as beautiful in form and feature as in character. A more 
attractive maiden one would not wish to see. Her brunette complexion 
softened and refined by Christian fervor and sentiment, with her sweet 
musical voice immediately won all our hearts, for we had all known 
her story and anticipated this pleasurable meeting. The aged father, 
after paying heavy exemption for two years and being unable to pay more, 
was conscripted into the Turkish army and taken far away. Soldiers and 
moslem neighbors had taken all available furniture and food and the mother 
and children were enduring unspeakbale hardships with worse dangers from 
the drunken soldiers daily threatening. Then came the sentence of exile. 
Across the vast stretches to some unknown world, possibly to some Turkish 
harem, for these beautiful Christian girls they must go on a day close at 
hand. Tears and entreaties were fruitless. They were Christians and 
enemies of the Sultan's kingdom and spies. They must go at once. It 
meant certain death and worse. In extreme desperation they went to God 
in prayer and fasting. Kneeling on the bare floor of a darkened room for 
hours with the Bible she had found pressed to her heart she prayed on 
and on and on with childlike appeal and faith. So were the others praying. 



46 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



A commotion was heard in the streets and Lo! General Allenby had 
entered the town and the Turks were fleeing never to return, thank God. 
Victory and deliverance had come. Prayer had won. God had not forgotten. 
Dr. Rowland assumed the completion of Monera's education and she is soon 
to come to America to enter one of our best Christian colleges. She is 
fitting herself for Christian missionary work among her own people in far 
off Palestine. How strange is the chequer work of Providence. The loss 
of this Bible became the guiding incident that gives Christian education 
to this capable young woman and provides for the extension of the knowledge 
of the Bible perhaps among thousands and thousands for all coming time. 
This Turk was led to offer this Bible for sale to the only Christian family 
in all that section. Just twenty miles south one time long ago a noble 
youth was maliciously sold into slavery by his brothers but later events 
placed him upon a pinnacle of power and influence that affected the salva- 
tion of a nation from death and guided the stream of future human history. 
The other two children have a consuming desire for an education. Let us 
hope that it may be gratified. 

We were met at the threshing floor by the old father and the children. 
Letters had gone ahead that we were coming to pay them a visit. Mr. 
Rowland immediately recognized Monera from photographs she had sent 
him and the meeting was very touching indeed. I can see them now standing 
hand in hand with their faces glowing with mutual regard. We were led 
to their simple home, which was a model of neatness. Everything showed 
the touch of Christian refinement in striking contrast with the adjacent 
moslem homes. Lunch was prepared for us but as we had brought our lunch 
from Tiberius we united ours with theirs in a royal feast of good and simple 
fare in the bonds of Christian fellowship. The relish of those Syrian honey 
cakes abides. After lunch we had religious services conducted by Dr. Row- 
land and then he asked Monera to tell the story of the lost Bible. Sweetly, 
simply, with full composure she talked in perfectly good English. Its 
effect upon us all was electric and our emotions overcame us and a mountain 
top experience words cannot describe was ours. Then the maidens sang 
"Galilee" for us. Such melody, such touching rendering of that beautiful 
song so replete with holy sentiment we had never heard before. Every 
noble impulse stirred by the beautiful lake we had that morning left came 
flooding back upon us. After other songs were sung we reluctantly bade 
a fond farewell to this worthy family in the far away land of the Christ. 



47 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Mr. Rowland out of the princely bigness of his heart is endeavoring to 
provide for the education of the other two young people, Karemy and the 
brother. We are sure that any assistance in this laudable endeavor will 
be much appreciated by him. He left with Monera a purse of $300 and 
they started to school again in Jerusalem and on the way all this was stolen 
by some wicked Turk whose diabolical heart is too black for my inadequate 
words to begin to describe. How pathetic! Can't some one come to the 
rescue ? 



,-r.k 



40 



CHAPTER V. 

Nazareth and Esdraelon. 



CHAPTER V. 
Nazareth and Esdraelon. 

Six miles south from Cana we suddenly came upon the hilltop above and 
looked down on Nazareth, once a hiss and a byword, but now one of the three 
most sacred cities of the world, the other two being, of course, Jerusalem 
and Bethlehem, for here our Lord grew up in wisdom and stature and in 
favor with God and man, and here He resided for almost thirty years, sancti- 
fying and dignifying human toil, His profound meditations on the deep things 
of God being tuned to the rythmic push of the plane and the soft rustle of 
the falling shavings. It is a clean little city of probably fifteen thousand 
inhabitants situated in a three quarter basin made by hills four hundred feet 
higher, on the slopes of which part of the city is built. The Nazareth valley 
is a mile long and half as wide and presents a pleasing view, shut in as 
it is by the guardian hills with its comparatively modern buildings with iron 
balconies and red tiled roofs and groves of almonds, figs, pomegranates, 
olives, and gardens of melons and cucumbers set apart by hedges of prickly 
pear. The streets are irregular but paved with cobblestones, while the side- 
walks of stone are two feet wide and raised a foot above the street level. 

Nazareth is now largely a Christian town composed mostly of Greek 
Catholics, though the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society conducts here 
a mission school, an orphanage, and a hospital that accomplish a vast deal 
of good and are deeply entrenched in popular appreciation. Some Moham- 
medans are also here with two mosques and graceful minarets. Allow me 
to state here that in the Orient the word Christian includes all Catholics 
and Protestants as distinguished from Mohammedans and Jews and all other 
non-Christian faiths. The Christians of Nazareth are very kind and courteous 
and are the best type of citizens we met in Palestine. Their homes are 
more cleanly and their demeanor more civil, due perhaps to its long pos- 
session of Christian institutions. The women are fairly attractive, perhaps 
as much so as at Bethlehem, whose women are said to excel all in Palestine 
in beauty, though I saw nothing strikingly excelling in either. We were 
beset at our hotel entrance by numbers of women with hands full of 
beautiful laces. They escorted us along the streets pleading most piteousiy 
with us to buy of them, which we did. The work was beautiful and the 
prices reasonable. We found English well spoken here and the children 



51 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



are all learning the language in the government schools. This is true 
all over the Holy Land and it will not be many years until one can make 
any part of it without an interpreter. 

Of course Nazareth gets its interest from its Christian traditions and 
relations to Christ and His family, without which it would be but a wide 
place in the road. It is not once mentioned by any Old Testament writer 
or by Josephus or any classical author before Christ. For some reason it 
was held in disrepute. Hence Nathaniel's question, "Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth?" It is mentioned twenty-seven times in the New 
Testament. Many traditional sites, few of which are authentic, are shown 
the tourist, but it is sufficient to know that He was here "conceived by 
the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary" and consecrated its soil for 
thirty years with His holy feet. We visited the Church of the Annunciation 
where the angel announced His coming birth. A marble altar with tablet 
containing the Latin inscription "Hie verbum caro factum est," (Here the 
Word was made flesh), stands at one end of the chapel. On either side is 
a marble column, the one marking where the angel Gabriel stood in making 
the annunciation, the other where the Virgin stood in receiving it. Mary's 
column is broken and suspends from the ceiling miraculously, you are 
told. Through a doorway we enter the Chapel of Joseph, and then we 
descend still deeper underground into Mary's kitchen, which is nothing but 
an old underground cistern. The chimney is but the overhead opening 
through which the water entered and was drawn. The above church in- 
corporates the "Holy House,'" or Casa Santa. However, the Roman Catholics 
claim that it was transported by angel hands to Loreto in southeastern 
Italy, and it is now visited by hundreds of thousands annually and is one 
of Rome's most venerated shrines. On one side of the above church is the 
Virgin's Fountain, the only authentic location in the city. From the spring 
under the church the waters are conducted to the exterior through pipes 
and issue in three spouts. This is the only spring or well in Nazareth and 
little of its water wastes. At all hours of the day, especially toward 
sunset, a motley throng, mostly women, gather here and retail the neighbor- 
hood gossip, as it was in the days of His childhood. The women carry their 
waterpots on their heads with skill and precision. Often their babies are 
carried with them and the children run alongside. That neatly dressed 
mother with the eight year old brightfaced boy by her side might have 
been centuries ago Mary and Jesus, she trudging along with her burden 



52 




The Fountain of the Virgin at Nazareth. 

"Here came Mary to fill her waterpots as is done today, the boy Jesus 
l>y her side." 



53 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



and He entertaining her with His childish and musical prattle. You are 
shown the school Christ attended in the interior of a monastery and in a 
chapel built in 1858 the identical workshop of Joseph and later of Jesus 
Himself, for tradition affirms that Joseph died not many years after the 
birth of Jesus and that He assumed the support of the mother and younger 
children. No mention is made of Joseph with Mary during His ministry 
and at the cross Jesus committed her to John's care. It is not, of course, 
the original, but is identical in appearance, for, as elsewhere stated, the 
mode of occupation in Palestine is gripped in a vise of long and unbroken 
conventionality and all things are done as it was in the beginning when 
Tubal Cain fashioned the metals into cunning artifice or Bezaleel the 
tabernacle curtains with skillful needle. We passed a carpenter shop with 
a man and a boy making yokes and boxes and thought that it might be a 
duplicate of the one of long ago. In another church we were shown the 
table on which Christ was said to have dined with His disciples both be- 
fore and after His resurrection, notwithstanding that He was forcibly 
ejected from Nazareth early in His ministry. Then we were taken to the 
synagogue He attended and from which He was cast out and led to the 
brow of the hill to be cast down to His death, which death He miraculously 
escaped. This synagogue is probably on or near the original location as it 
was built by the Crusaders on the ruins of the first and earlier one, 
whose history can be traced back to A. D. 570. It is now a Greek church 
and presents the anomaly of a Catholic congregation appropriating a 
Jewish synagogue. A gorgeous altar with many candles is inside a door 
at the end and above are the pictures of Christ and Mary and the Apostles. 
The Mount of Precipitation is shown you two miles south of the city. It 
is a high bluff and the most one could say in its favor as the real location 
is that one could be precipitated to his death very easily from it, but not 
far from the synagogue is a bluff that would answer every requirement for 
the act and for the gospel narrative. The sudden and volcanic temper of 
the Oriental, with passions fierce, quick, and vindictive would have sought 
instinctively the nearest and most accessible spot for this purpose and 
their volatile passions would have cooled down before they had walked 
two miles, had they been energetic enough to do so. Alas for Nazareth 
that eventful day! For when Jesus passed through their midst and went 
His way He left the city to the just deprivation of His presence and un- 
told blessings amongst them. The Nazarenes are not the only people who 



55 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 

have been too stupid to appraise prop<erJy, talent , and, virtue and ability 
within their confines. Was it not true that His own mother misunderstood 
Him and His own brothers and sisters said He was insane? To this event 
we are due the well-known adage that "a prophet is not without honor 
saye in his own country." 

A point of special interest that no tourist should omit is the Dome of 
Neby Sain, or the Tomb of Simeon. It is a high hill four hundred feet 
above the city on the northwestern side. The location of Simeon's final 
resting place, if authentic, is of interest, but the view is sublime. For 
miles and miles the whole Galilee region unrolls in a panorama that for 
beauty and historic interest is unparalleled. To the north is Mount Hermon 
lifting his hoary head heavenward. To the east is the Jordan valley and 
beyond it the mountains of Gilead. To the west is the Carmel range "like 
some long reptilian giant sleeping by the sea," its gazelle nose jutting into 
the sea, and its highest point being the traditional site of Elijah's victorious 
contest with the priests of Baal. Beyond, the Great Sea shines like an 
opal gem in the sunlight. To the south are the mountains of Samaria with 
the twin mountains of Ebal and Gerizim looming in the distance, while 
on the near side and in the immediate prospect sleeps the wonderful and 
historic Plain of Esdraelon about which more must be said. This elevation 
was doubtless a favorite resort for Jesus and the past history of visible 
sites doubtless stirred His soul and the beauties of nature so eft considered 
charmed Him into sympathetic interpretation. And doubtless here after 
a hard day's toil He would often pray and meditate under the stars of God. 

Traveling south we come soon to the edge of this celebrated plain. It 
is the prettiest spot in Palestine. In shape it is a triangle some fifteen 
miles across and every foot of it is filled with historic traditions and as- 
sociations. Across it from southeast to northwest stretches the "Brook 
Kishon," dry at the time of our visit, but in the rainy season a raging 
torrent being supplied by many tributary rivulets. It might easily have 
justified Debora's poetic tribute in her song of victory, "The river of Kishon 
swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon," when "the stars 
in their courses fought against Sisera." This plain is the world's most 
famous battleground. From Barak and Debora, and more ancient still, 
to Napoleon and Allenby, warriors of many nations have encamped here 
and their banners have floated over it and have been wet "with the dews 
of Hermon." 

56 









































,^\ ; x--.; : x.x:.v.v.Xv.: 




Esdraelon. 

"The world's most famous battlefield. Every foot of it is filled with 
his toric associations. Here 'the stars in their courses fought against 
Sisera. " 



57 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



"Monarchs of Palestine, and Kings of Tyre, 

And brave Maccabee have all been here; 

And Cestius, with his Roman plunderers; 

And Saladin and Baldwin, and the host 

Of fierce Crusaders, from the British north, 

And shook their swords above thee, and their blood 

Flowed down like water to thine ancient sea." 

The ancient highway between Egypt and Mesopotamia and the far 
east traversed this valley, entering through a pass at the eastern end 
of the Jezreel plain, a subsidiary division of the larger Esdraelon plain, 
and leaving it through another pass near the sea leading out through the 
beautiful plain of Acca, merging into Sharon. The road from north to 
south likewise crossed it. Here converged the highways of ancient com- 
merce and here was spilt much of human gore as back and forth surged 
the contending armies of the nations. The valley is called at its wester.1 
side the Valley of Megiddo. Twenty battlefields range around it and on 
its surface. So much so that John in Revelation 16:16 makes it the type 
of the final contest between the forces of good and evil, the Armageddon, Ur 
meaning city, and Megiddo troops, city of troops. Says a most eminent 
authority, Dr. George Adam Smith, in his Historical Geography of the 
Holy Land, "We are impressed with the great arena traversed through 
the centuries by commerce, war, and judgment. From Jezreel (his position 
of observation) you see the slaughter place of the priests of Baal; you see 
Jehu ride from Bethshan to the vineyard of Naboth at your feet, the 
enormous camp of Holofernes spreading from the hills above Jenin, march- 
ing and countermarching Syrians, Egyptians, and Jews in the days of the 
Hasmoneans, the elephants and engines of Antiochus, the litters of Cleopatra, 
the camps of the Romans and the wonderful men of old Rome at thjeir 
heads — Pompey, Mark Anthony, Vespasian, and Titus. Here crossed the 
early Christians, and later came the Moslems from the desert, and then t^.j 
mighty Ccrusaders, till the magnificent Saladin drove them out and the 
Mohammedans held sway until the mighty Napoleon dreamed of an empire 
on the Euphrates and swept across here with his conquering forces, only 
to be beaten and to recross this plain in his first retreat." It was the 
portion of Isacher and no spot of Palestine possessed more potential value. 
Yet for centuries it has been only a grazing plain due to its being infested 
by wandering bands of Bedouins that seized the harvests and preyed upon 



59 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



the defenseless farmers. Hence its wonderful richness has lain unutilized 
and today not one-sixth of its acreage is tilled. However, a better day is 
near for the railroad from Damascus to Haifa, opened in 1905, crosses the 
plain and signs of its reclamation are apparent and great agricultural 
operations are taking shape under the protection of English soldier police, 
whose white tents we saw in a pleasant little valley by a stream. We 
also saw them riding back and forth all over Palestine. It was to us a 
most agreeable sight. 

We slowly jogged along across this plain with B-ble and Concordance on 
our lap while the above reflections crowded in upon our minds. At a modern 
town called Fuleh in the middle of the plain the Beersheba branch of the 
railroad — begun in 1913 — starts southward. We overtook its terminus at 
Shechem in 1921. It will soon reach Jerusalem. 

The above picture looking west from Jezreel shows the beautiful lay of 
the valley and some of the quite recent efforts at wheat raising. The 
harvest was over and threshing was on. I described in the preceding chapter 
a threshing floor at Cana. In the bazaarh section of Nazareth we saw a 
fine old white bearded patriarch sitting by a pile of wheat unmindful of our 
attention, intently engaged in measuring the grain brought to him. He was; 
the official gauger, or wheat measurer, of Nazareth. He is noted for his" 
honesty and justice. He piles it on by hands full until not another grain 
falls from the heaped up measure. No one ever questions his decision or 
impugns his honor. He is an example of God's generosity to the unselfish 
and Jesus was thinking of this time honored custom when he used the ex-' 
pression "heaped up, pressed down and shaken together and running over." 

In this valley lie the ruins of a number of well known cities of sacred 
and historic significance. On the east, ranged around the base of Little 
Hermon, the "Hill of Moreh," are Endor where dwelt the witch consulted 
Dy the desperate Saul, Shunem where Elisha restored the son of his good 
friends to life, and Nam where the Christ performed a similar miracle for 
a heartbroken widow. Near here in the Valley of Jezreel, above mentioned, 
is Bethshan, Gilboa, Gideon's Fountain, and Jezreel itself, the summer capital 
of Ahab and his wicked queen Jezebel whose inflamed and passionate blood 
doubtless made the dogs that drank it more savage and vicious. Nearby the 
palace was the coveted vineyard of poor old Naboth slain in cold and 
barbarous cruelty. On the south is En-gannim (modern Jenin), the city of 



60 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



the ten lepers, and Taanach, mentioned in Debora's song and also in in- 
scriptions found in Karnak in Egypt. And on the southwest is Megiddo, near 
where the main highway entered from the way of the sea. None of these 
towns are more than mere skeletons of their ancient existence and have but 
few inhabitants living in simple stone huts. Megiddo itself has had to be 
reclaimed and identified by archaeologists who are still at work there. Its 
modern name is Lejjun. 



61 



CHAPTER VI. 

Dothan — Samaria — Shechem. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Dothan — Samaria — Shechem. 

We ate our lunch under a wide spreading mulberry tree at Jenin where 
is a grove of fig trees, some of them a foot in diameter and richly laden 
with fruit. There is also a large fountain near which is a fine monument 
to an English officer killed in an aeroplane accident. At the fountain women 
were beating the dirt from garments dipped in the water and laid upon a 
flat rock. At Jenin we had a good opportunity to observe the difference be- 
tween Christian and Mohammedan character. We were traveling in three 
large vehicles. The drivers of the two forward ones were Mohammedans. 
That of ours, the last one, a Christian young man from Tiberius. Dr. S. 
had dropped his purse from the first vehicle. The driver of the second saw 
it fall and stopped his team just over its position on the ground. Under 
pretense of adjusting the harness he slyly picked up the purse and slipped 
it into his blouse. Our boy saw the whole transaction and at Jenin when 
we stopped he informed Dr. S. of the affair and George compelled the rascal 
to produce the purse, much to the comfort of our esteemed companion and 
our appreciation for our Christian driver. Christianity works. The 
Palestinian peasant is noted for his duplicity, dishonesty, until he finds 
Christ. Then he is a gentleman. 

Four miles south we come to the pretty vale of Dothan, named from the 
town of Dothan, ruins of which have been found on the hill rising from the 
middle part of the valley. Near the road is a typical spring at which 
shepherds were watering flocks of white sheep and black goats. This is 
probably the site of the sale of Joseph into captivity, a pit nearby on the 
hill near a terebinth tree being pointed out as the place of his temporary 
confinement. The perfidy of these brethren is seen in the large when we 
recall that the noble hearted Joseph had walked sixty miles, coming from 
"the vale of Hebron" across a rough country with food and refreshment 
for these ingrates, the journey requiring at least two days. He came first 
to Shechem and was found wandering about seeking for them, and on being 
informed that they had gone north eighteen miles to Dothan, hurried forward 
to find them, only to be seized and cruelly sold into slavery for his kindness. 
They were no more humane than some of the modern Bedouin tribes that 
invade this region. The history of Dothan dates back to the sixteenth 



65 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



century before Christ. It was well known in the fourth century A. D. and 
lost in the twelfth. Here dwelt for awhile Elisha and his servant who 
was so terrified at the sight of the Syrian army surrounding the city on 
that early morning, while the old prophet was wonderfully composed be- 
cause he beheld the presence of a vaster army of "the horses and chariots 
of the Lord" ringing around the city and themselves. We are now treading 
historic ground indeed as we journey southward toward the Holy City, and 
the Old Testament events are standing out in bold outline and with a new 
significance and interpretation. All this history was well known to Jesus 
and often had He traveled this same route and into His education had gone 
the historic significance of all these locations and events as the ancient 
people of God had surged back and forth in contest with their enemies 
either to possess the promised land or to keep it. 

We pass through a defile and emerge into another valley in the midst 
of which is a larger hill than Dothan, on which was a more celebrated city. 
I refer to Samaria, the modern name of which is Sebaste, which is the 
Greek for Augusta, the feminine for Augustus the Emperor, for whom 
Herod named the city when he rebuilt it. The hill is 300 feet above the 
"Vale of Barley" surrounding it. Its appearance has been described as 
"a cup within a bowl, or a cone within a volcano," perhaps recalling the 
present appearance of Vesuvius as we saw it in August 1921. It is not to 
be confused with the province of Samaria in which it sat as "crown" or 
capitol. The city was named from Shemer, from whom it was bought, and 
the province took its name from the city. It was built by Omii, king of 
Israel, B. C. 925, and was the capitol of the ten tribes for 200 years, or 
until 722, when after a siege of three years by Shalmanezer, king of Syria, 
it was captured and destroyed and the "crown" demolished. Omri was suc- 
ceeded by his ambitious son Ahab who lavished his wealth upon it. He 
built a gorgeous "ivory palace" in which he sat in luxury and in sin, being 
swayed by the wicked caprices of the violent Jezebel, the queen who ruled 
the king who ruled Israel. He also built a Temple of Baal and made the 
worship of the sun the state religion. Elijah and Elisha figured in its 
history and the former thundered against its idolatry. Here Ben-Hadad, 
king of Syria, and his thirty-two allied kings, gathered in siege only to be 
miraculously dispersed. Here Elijah predicted the three years' drought, 
and later came that strange episode of Elisha leading the blinded army of 



66 



A PALESTINE PILGEIMAGE 



the Syrians to captivity, one man — and God — against a multitude. Here 
came home from Ramah the bloody chariot of the wicked king Ahab bearing 
his corpse. In the pool on the east side of the hill the chariot was washed 
of its blood. During the reign of Hosea, as above stated, the city was 
captured by King Shalmanezer and its inhabitants, with the majority of 
the ten tribes, were scattered into exile from which they never returned. 
Syrians were imported in their stead. These intermarried with certain 
remaining Jews and formed the Samaritans. In 333 B. C. the province fell 
to Alexander the Great, who removed the Samaritans to Shechem. Then 
it receded to the Syrians and the Ptolemaic kings. In 198 B. C. it was 
conquered by the despicable Antiochus, who even sacrificed a sow upon the 
altar of the Holy Place in the Temple in Jerusalem. His excesses pro- 
voked the Maccabees to revolt and thence came a series of wars leading 
up to the Roman occupation and subjugation by Pompey B. C. 63. In 
B. C. 40, Herod, son of Antipater, was appointed from Rome the king of 
the Jews. He two years later married the beautiful Mariamne, grand- 
daughter of John Hyrcanus of the house of the Maccabees, and appointed 
her brother Aristobulus III the High Priest, thus merging church and state. 

Herod rebuilt and embellished Samaria and to his palace there he took 
Queen Mariamne. She never loved him, neither respected him, but he 
loved her passionately and always came back to her. Yet, instigated by 
his mother, he murdered her in a fit of insane jealousy. He was never the 
same again. On the top of the hill in a level basin Herod built his theater. 
Nearly 100 elegant columns two feet thick and sixteen feet high stand as 
a relic of those splendid adornments. Around the hill extended a driveway 
three thousand feet in length and bordered by a colonade. Fountains 
sparkled amongst overhanging arbors and birds sang amidst blooming 
trellises of rambling vines. Terrace after terrace from the vale to the 
top presented the appearance of a verdant staircase. Everything bore the 
mark of luxury and extravagance. 

Herod was a dashing, brilliant, ambitious, high-spirited ruler with the 
desert blood of Esau in his veins. He was a politician of the first order 
and as fast as one ruler succeeded another in Rome had the faculty of 
aligning himself with the favored side and perpetuating his power in Judea, 
to the bitter disappointment of the Jews. He not only rebuilt Samaria, 
but restored Jerusalem to its former glory, his temple probably excelling 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



He made a tropical garden of Jericho, rich and splendid, which he redeemed 
from the beautiful Cleopatra, upon whom the infatuated Anthony had be- 
stowed it. He built Tiberius, as formerly stated. Lastly he built his own 
tomb on a high, cone-shaped hill called today Frank Mountain (Jebel Fireidis) 
near Bethlehem. It was called his Herodium, was artificially constructed, 
and its circular summit contains today castled walls and towers and chambers. 
To it Herod, having died at Jericho, v/as brought to fatten the worms that 
consumed his bloated remains not long after the adjacent hillsides echoed 
to the melody of the angels' song announcing the birth of the real King of 
the Jews, and near which spot his unspeakable cruelty had occasioned the 
slaughter of so many innocent babes. It has been well said that "he was a 
super-monster in a race of brutal monsters, the scourge of the world." 

But Herod made the new Samaria. It is today but a small, dirty village 
with two hundred miserable inhabitants and some cactus hedges and a little 
bunch of palms, amidst a debris of fallen columns and temple stones which 
speak eloquently by contrast of its desolation with its former grandeur. 
Its relation to sacred and profane history justifies this lengthy treatise 
of a city that is no more. Isaiah's graphic prophecy is fulfilled, "The 
crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under foot, and 
the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading 
flower." Ahab, Herod, two dashing personalities of Samaria. Each might 
have served well his day and generation, but each surrendered himself to 
inordinate ambition and dissipation and exploitation of the populace, and 
went down "to the vile dust from whence they sprung, unwept, unhonored, 
and unsung." St. Philip came to Samaria "and preached Christ unto them, 
and the people with one accord gave heed." As Nablus (Shechem) increased 
Sebaste (Samaria) waned. In an old, dilapidated church you are shown the 
supposed tomb of John the Baptist, though the claim is made, remember, 
that his head is buried in the Great Mosque at Damascus. Beside this 
tomb is that of Elijah and Obadiah and one other. 

Six miles from Sebaste we come to Shechem nestling in the pass between 
Mounts Ebal and Gerizim which stand 3000 feet above sea level and 800 
above the plain. The first mention we have of the city dates back 2100 
years to the days of Abraham's journey from Padan-Aram westward. In 
Gen. 12:6 we are told that he came to "the place of Sichem," and that "the 
Caananite was then in the land." Here God appeared and promised to give 

68 




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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



this land to him and to his posterity, and Abraham built an altar and 
worshipped, as was his custom. Some 400 years or so later Jacob and his 
sons came that way and bought of Sichem for 100 pieces of silver (lambs) 
a parcel of ground just east of the present city. He also built an altar 
and digged a well which remains until this day. His sons, Simeon and 
Levi, destroyed all the males of Shechem under an unfair artifice in revenge 
for an insult to their sister Dinah by Sichem. Here came Joseph's brethren 
to feed their father's flock, and not far hence, as above mentioned, they 
consummated the act of arch-treachery by selling him into captivity. Here 
Jotham, standing on a rock pulpit on the side of Gerizim uttered that 
beautiful Parable of the Trees, the only parable in the Old Testament. 
Here in a valley between gently sloping hills which make an ideal location 
for the purpose, both in space and acoustics, Joshua assembled the multi- 
tudes and delivered unto them the law as Mcses had commanded. Here 
after Solomon's death occurred the division of the kingdom when Shechem 
became the capitol of the ten tribes of Israel. Here came our Savior and 
abode two days at their urgent petition proclaiming the life giving words 
unto them. As above stated, in 333 B. C. Alexander removed all the 
Samaritans from Samaria to Shechem, where they have remained until this 
day in ever-dwindling numbers. Shechem was the birthplace of Justin 
Martyr. 

It has been said that Palestine affords no more beautiful town than 
Shechem, now called Nablus, a corruption of Neapolis, new city. It abounds 
in springs, fountains, and rivulets. There are said to be eighty springs 
in the city, each bearing a separate name. In the springtime and early 
summer the hillsides are robed in loveliness. Gardens, groves, and green 
meadows abound. Here flourish the melon and the cucumber, the citron 
and the pomegranate, the almond and the fig, the orange and the apple, 
the vine and the olive. As one author has stated it, "Here a scene of al- 
most unparalleled verdure burst upon our view. The whole valley was 
filled with gardens of vegetables and orchards of all kinds of fruits, watered 
by several fountains, which burst forth in several parts and flowed west- 
ward in refreshing streams. It came upon us suddenly like a scene of fairy 
enchantment. We saw nothing to compare with it in all Palestine." At 
the time we visited here we saw little to charm us. The main highway has 
always passed through the city and the high mountains on either side are 
natural fortifications, while the narrow vale could be easily fortified at each 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



end. The above photograph was made from Mt. Ebal and shows the city 
and Mt. Gerizim with the pathway of its ascent to the place of the Samaritan 
celebration of the Passover. 

The city has 25,000 inhabitants, mostly Mohammedans, who have always 
borne a bad name for discourtesy to travelers, whom they call "Nasrani," 
or Nazarenes. There are some Christians and a hospital which we visited 
conducted by the Church of England. All its beds were full and conversa- 
tions with some of the patients revealed deep gratitude for such Christian 
attention. We later saw the physician in charge devoutly at worship at 
St. George's Jerusalem. There is a mission house and a school and a 
Protestant service every Sunday. We stopped at a hotel which was a con- 
verted monastery. Its walls 18 inches thick afforded a feeling of security 
but its little cell rooms were rather stuffy. The table fare was good but 
certain other accommodations very unsatisfactory. It was the only point 
of our whole tour where the hotel accommodations were not pleasing. 

The mcst interesting point of observation is the Samaritan quarter in 
the southwestern part of the town. Here since the days of Alexander have 
dwelt all of this sect existent in the world. They are a mixed race with 
a mixed religion. Dating back from the rebuilding of Jerusalem by 
Zerubabel, they have been inveterate enemies of the Jews. At that time 
they at first sought to assist them and on being declined did all possible to 
prevent it. A rival temple was built on Mt. Gerizim and though it is long 
fallen into ruins, only some columns and hewn stones remaining, yet they 
annually hold the Feast of the Passover here with great ceremony and 
devotion. A few have witnessed this celebration and the descriptions of 
it as given them is indeed fascinating, but we cannot attempt to give any 
account, not having witnessed it. They believe in one God and are expect- 
ing the advent of the Messiah. They also believe in immortality and the 
resurrection. Their Bible is the Pentateuch only. They claim to possess 
the original manuscript written by Abishua, the great grandson of Aaron, 
eleven years after the death of Moses, and that the present antique copy 
was made 2600 years ago. The High Priest who admitted us to their syna- 
gogue very devoutly brought out a very old script in double roll in a brass 
case adorned with Venetian scroll work and covered with a silken scarf. 
Scholars have dated the original as having been produced about the sixth 
century. They exhibit this to a stream of tourists with all seriousness and 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



would be offended if you were to question its authenticity. Small repro- 
ductions are offered for sale and you are expected to buy. You are also 
expected to leave a liberal donation to the Priest for carrying on his work. 

There are today but 200 Samaritans. Their policy of intermarriage has 
depleted the sect and those who remain are sickly and pale and effeminate. 
Their long, curly, silky hair and loose flowing robes make one want to ad- 
dress them as "Madam." Soon this interesting people will be no more and 
the Codex Sinaiticus will repose in some musty vault as one of the worlds 
forgotten scrolls. 

The chief industry of Nablus is soap making. It is said that there are 
twenty soap factories here. Apparently all of it is exported as I saw no 
evidence of its local use. It is made from olive oil. Its bazarrhs are dark 
and cramped and unattractive. We were not sorry to leave and to hasten 
on to the Holy City, which we reached the selfsame day. 



73 



CHAPTER VII. 
Jacob's Well— -Shiloh— Bethel. 



CHAPTER VII. : 

Jacob's Well— Shiloh— Bethel. 

Less than one mile out from Shechem in the beautiful "vale of Sicliem'' 
are two of the most authentic spots of Palestine, as well as among the most 
venerated and interesting. I refer to Jacob's well and Joseph's tomb. A 
well of water here is everlasting and its necessity guarantees its preserva- 
tion. A tomb of some worthy is always a venerated shrine, both to Jew 
and Moslem, as previously stated and of which more will be said. We are 
told in Gen. 26 that the Philistines had filled up certain wells that Abraham 
had digged in Gerar. It is probable that here the envy of the Shechemite 
shepherds made it necessary that Jacob have his own well. The Old Testa- 
ment is silent on the specific reason why this well was digged. It is enough 
to know that it filled its place not only for Jacob, his own family and flocks, 
but that it still lives in its perennial blessings to a grateful posterity. It 
has not only become immortal for itself, but has been immortalized in that 
the wearied Master rested by its side and a great sermon was preached 
from its curb as a pulpit, even though His audience were but one soiled 
and misguided soul. A little northeast on the slope of Ebal is Sychar, 
modern Askar, which gives the name to this valley, the plain of Askar. This 
was the scene of a fierce battle during the recent war and this pleasant 
vale lay heaped with the slain while its surface was pitted with shell holes 
made by the guns of both British and Turk from their emplacement on the 
neighboring mountains. How different that day from one long gone when 
the Prince of Peace sat upon the cobbled curb of the well and surveyed this 
valley with its rich and fertile acreage waving golden in the breeze, sym- 
bolizing to Him that greater harvest of perishing souls of that and of every 
generation with its ever tragic scarcity of reapers. While sitting here there 
came the woman from Sychar to fill her waterpot from its refreshing 
abundance, and there ensued one of the most memorable conversations of 
history. Here He unfolded to her inquiring soul the deep truth of the 
spirituality of God and the privileged universality of His worship, as well 
as the satisfying and copious abundance of the water of eternal life ever 
springing up within. Here met the sinner and the Saviour face to face. 
And this rapid dialog with its vivid imagery and penetrating diagnosis of 
her real condition led her to cry out "Sir, give me this water that I thirst 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



not." Two classes understood Him, the Pharisees and the women, the 
former because He understood them and hesitated not to expose their shams 
and hypocrisy, and the latter because their warm hearts felt Him and 
lavished their appreciative affection upon Him, sitting at His feet in rapt 
meditation, busy in the details of His personal comfort, breaking their 
alabaster boxes over His head, and wiping His feet with their flowing hair. 
It is significant that this anti-Jewish woman gave the first recognition of 
His Messiaship and became His first woman missionary, the file leader of 
a glorious progeny. She is an example of the double truth that theological 
uncertainty begets and betrays moral laxity and that often in the most 
sinful and unsuspected hearts there are desires, questionings, stirrings of 
conscience, and intense hungerings for satisfaction and for certainty. 0, 
that the world might learn, as did she, that all it needs is Jesus, that to 
come face to face with Him and to recognize and accept Him fills every 
need and solves every problem. 

The question is often asked as to why she came to this well more than 
a mile from her home, passing by other springs nearer by. If she came 
from Shechem, as some think, there was abundance of water within the 
city. The quality of the water of this noted well is one answer. It is soft, 
sparkling, and refreshing, while many of the other springs are limestone 
and distasteful and unwholesome. She might have been carrying water 
for the reapers, as is the custom today. Perhaps also some special super- 
stition might have attached to this well. We do not know. The simplest 
reason is that she came for earthly water and found spiritual. That is 
enough. 

The well is in the midst of a walled garden of three acres. Over the 
well is a Greek church in process of building, using the foundations of 
an ancient church erected by Constantine in the early part of the fourth 
century. A modern concrete curb extends to the water 75 feet below. 
There is 15 feet depth of water. The priest in charge lowered a candle 
and we could see the water very well. A bucket full was drawn up and 
we all drank. It was clear as crystal and refreshing. 

One half mile north of the well is Joseph's tomb in a walled enclosure. 
This tomb, as above stated, is authentic. It is venerated by Jew, Samaritan, 
Moslem, and Christian. The Jews and Samaritans burn offerings here to 



78 




Our First View of the Holy City. 

"We entered this, the Damascus Gate, on the north." 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Joseph's memory. He had been dead for 460 years and his mummy had been 
carried about for more than 40 years after the exodus from Egypt. - It 
doubtless was a great relief to them to arrive at last at the spot of its' 
intended burial. "And the bones of Joseph which the Children of Israel 
brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground 
which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor for an hundred pieces of silver, 
and it became an inheritance to the children of Joseph." Joshua 24:32. This 
one portion above his brethren was Jacob's dying bequest. The authenticity 
of this spot rests on Jewish tradition, and also on the corroborative fact 
that some Jews have resided on and near this spot from that day until 
this, even a "remnant" remained there during the captivity. My esteemed 
friend, Dr. Shelton of Emory University faculty, visited this spot in June, 
1920, as a member of the Chicago University Archaeological Expedition. 
He learned reliably that German excavators in 1914 had unearthed near 
Joseph's tomb "a suit of armor, greaves, helmet, breastplate, shield, and 
mace, all Egyptian and all of pure gold." He concludes — and rightly, we 
believe — that it belonged to Joseph and was used by him in Pharaoh's 
luxurious court and brought from Egypt with his remains and with them 
buried here. Up to the time of Dr. Shelton's statement this interesting 
find had not been made public. 

Thirty miles south is Jerusalem and we must be going. The road as 
elsewhere is macadam and being constantly repaired. It winds througn 
a series of hills and valleys that grow more sacred as one approaches 
the ever Holy City. In this thirty miles, taking a strip ten miles wide, 
we counted more than a hundred small towns, all of them similar, and 
many of them possessing some ancient significance dating back to Hebrew 
times and possibly to the days of the Hittites and the Perizzites. The 
ruins of their walled cities composed of large square stones, rock-hewn 
tanks, broken cisterns, neglected threshing floors, old wells, gapped and 
eroded terraces, give evidence of a more vigorous race of industrious and 
skillful men. We cannot give the ancient names of these cities nor discuss 
more than a few of the most important of them. We come first to Shiloii 
(Seilun), now containing but a few huts, piles of stones on the hillside, a well 
and a tomb beside a big umbrella-shaped tree. Here rested the ark first after 
its long wilderness journey after a short stay at Gilgal, and here was set up 
the Tabernacle. Here danced the daughters of Israel at the Yearly Feast, and 
here assembled to worship the tribes of Israel coming from near and 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



from far. Here occurred that beautiful and tender nursery story of 
Hannah and little Samuel. Bitter in soul the devout mother came yearly 
with her companion but with no cooing babe on her breast or prattling 
son by her side. Slipping aside she knelt before the curtain of the Taber- 
nacle and besought God for a son. Eli beheld her moving lips and heaving 
breast and cruelly surmised that she was intoxicated with wine. How 
often are burdened souls thus misunderstood! God rightly interpreted her 
prayer and answered it in the gift of a son who later rilled an immense 
place in Israel's history and steered it across a very dangerous transition. 
This child was formally dedicated to God and accepted by Him. To Eli's 
custody she committed him, coming up frequently to bring the little coat 
and other simple necessities. And one night while he lay in his little 
room, perhaps in the dim light of his lamp, or more probably while the 
light of the moon streamed through his little window, God spoke to him 
thrice and called him definitely to his life work so important and eventful. 
Then one sad day Old Eli, sitting in the gate, heard the doom of his family, 
the ruin of his house, the death of his vile sons, and the capture of the 
Ark of the Covenant by the Philistines, and fell over dead with a broken 
heart and a broken neck. This was the end of Shiloh and after this it is 
seldom mentioned save as an example of that penalty that ever follows 
moral decadence and light esteem of moral standards and requirements. 
Ahijah the prophet dwelt here and hither came in disguise the wife ol 
King Jeroboam to learn the doom of that sinful house. There is here one 
level spot 77 feet wide and 412 feet long cut in the side of the rocky hill 
which was very probably the site of the Tabernacle which tradition says 
"was a structure of low stone walls with a tent drawn over the top." 

Hastening south, we pass the ruins of Bethel, very similar to the ruins 
of Shiloh. Like most Palestinian towns, present and ancient, Bethel was 
built on a hill. This custom existed for two reasons. First, for defensive 
purposes, and second, because of the value of the lower lands for fields 
and vineyards. It contains today 500 inhabitants. There are remnants 
of an old Greek church and a tower. Here Abraham came in his journey 
to Egypt from Haran and here he built an altar to which he returned years 
later rich and prosperous, but having engaged in some doubtful ex- 
periences, remorse for which possibly helped to guide him back to that 
sacred spot of tender emotions and holy associations. Here Jacob came, 
weary with his forty-mile tramp from Beer-sheba, having tarried at 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Beeroth, a few miles south, till the sun was set, and lighted on "a certain 
place." Tired, lonely, heartsick, perhaps remorseful over his complicity 
in the deception of blind old Isaac, he threw himself on the dry earth and 
pillowed his head on a stone and sank into slumber, doubtless remember- 
ing: that God had here appeared to his Grandfather Abraham. As he slept 
God swung open the gates of heaven and a golden staircase was pushed 
out and downward until its base rested on two large stones by his pillow, 
and up and down this lambent stairway tripped the radiant angels of God. 
He awoke and called it El-Bethel, the House of God. When he lay down 
it was but a "certain place." When he arose it was "the House of God." 
God was there, and His presence was at once its consecration and its 
glory. And when after many years he returned as a rich and prosperous 
patriarch he must again get back to Bethel and worship. It is notable 
that Jacob got his vision on the very spot where his Grandfather had 
built an altar. His pillow might have been one of the old altar stones. 
Maybe this guided him to Bethel. At any rate let parents remember that 
high religious experiences reach further than one's immediate day and 
generation and carry to unborn generations some sacred benefits. Centuries 
later the Master gave to Nathaniel, the guileless Israelite, the real in- 
terpretation of this heavenly vision. He told him that Himself, Jesus, was 
the golden staircase and that His atonement linked earth to heaven and 
opened its possibilities and revelations to all the willing sons of men. 
Jeroboam prostituted Bethel to heathen worship and basest idolatry im- 
ported from Egypt. He mocked God and made a sacrilegious parody of 
the temple worship at Jerusalem. The curse of God fell upon Bethel and 
the bones of false prophets and hireling priests were exhumed and burned 
to ashes and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Nothing remains now 
of temple or palace. Altars, shady groves, and facilities of unspeakable 
idolatry have gone, despite the glorious appearances to Abrham and that; 
vision to Jacob of heaven coming down and transforming the barren moor- 
land into the House of God. Amos cries out in his righteous protest 
against false worship, "Seek not Bethel * * * Bethel shall come to 
nought." Amos 5:5. The prophecy is fulfilled. 

A few miles below Bethel we pass Beeroth (El-Bireh) a town of 800 
people with a gushing fountain and a shady grove. It is the reputed spot 
where Joseph and Mary missed the child Jesus. But let us hasten on. 
We are within ten miles of Jerusalem. We are impatient. Letters from 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



home will be there, we are tired, and glad that tomorrow is the Sabbath — 
and it is the Holy City. 

Next is Ramah, a town of Benjamin six miles from Jerusalem, where 
Ahab was killed and Jehu was proclaimed king. Two miles west of Ramah 
is Gibeon where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still. To the right 
as we pass is Neby Samwil, the ancient Mizpah, where Samuel was buried, 
his tomb being shown you. Here Saul was selected as Israel's first king. 
Many other events transpired here. It is one of the highest points of 
southern Palestine, being 2935 feet elevation, and so commands a grand 
panoramic view of the land including Jerusalem, and many thousands of 
pilgrims have gazed on the city for the first time from this vantage point. 
Here Richard Coeur de Lion, in the third Crusade 1190 A. D., first beheld 
it and covering his face with his hands exclaimed as he knelt, "Ah„ Lord 
God, I pray that I may never see thy Holy City if so be that I may not 
rescue it from the hands of thine enemies." He might have done so, but; 
for some unaccountable reason he effected a compromise with Saladin by 
which western pilgrims might visit Jerusalem exempt from the high taxes 
which Saracen princes had hitherto imposed. 

How our hearts swell as we too gaze upon it. Within a few minutes 
more "our feet shall stand within thy gates O, Jerusalem." Over our 
heads an airplane is sailing and on the road Fords are passing, while a 
caravan camel train slowly winds its weary way toward the city as ic 
was thousands of years ago. The new and the old. They are both here. 
But how long one cannot predict. The wheels of modern progress are 
turning fast. If allowed, commercialism will modernize all institutions 
and remake the surface of the country. That may be best. It is the 
program of Zionism. Not long will the old Palestine remain. Those who 
would see it as it has been must hurry. Let us hope that enough of the 
old will remain to keep alive the spirit of reverent visitation and venera- 
tion. At least the mountains, the streams and lakes, the wells, and the 
tombs will remain. We are at the Damascus Gate. We would like to have 
our readers enter with us. But today's journey has been long and wearisome, 
and we trust interesting, and we shall request that you wait until next 
chapter to visit the Holy City. Until then, good night. 



84 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Entering Jerusalem. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Entering Jerusalem. 

Less than a mile north we ascend the hill Scopus overlooking the city 
and get the first close up and satisfactory view. For three days through the 
hot Syrian sun we have been working our way southward, reading and dream- 
ing of Jerusalem as many thousands of pilgrims have done before. Now we 
are about to enter and the dream of years about to be realized. Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, city of the Great King, the lode star of Jew, Moslem and Christian, 
illustrious above all earthly cities in song, story, and deed from the time 
of Abraham and Melchizedek to General Allenby and Sir Samuel! Within 
thine ancient precincts kings have reigned in splendor, and events most 
momentous have transpired, chief among which was that day of mockerj/, 
farcical trial, and unjust death of One branded as an impostor, but One 
who "lifted the gates of empires from their hinges and turned back the 
stream of centuries," and now rules in highest heaven over angels and: 
principalities and powers. Jerusalem, city of David — and of Jesus. We 
enter the Damascus gate and pass through the Damascus street and soon 
reach our commodious and comfortable hotel. It is five o'clock. Dr. Rowland 
and I have a large, airy corner room overlooking a busy street, our beds are 
restful, the fare and the service fine. Here we shall spend the most 
memorable week of our lives. From this room we shall go out with sad- 
ness, bidding good-bye, perhaps forever, to the Holy City. The first letters 
received for a month since leaving home are given us, "good news in a 
far country" indeed. After a night of sweet rest we arise early on the 
Sabbath and attend High Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, visiting 
the service at both the Orthodox and the Armenian Chapels. The former 
was gorgeous and more largely attended. The vested choir sang with sin- 
cere and practiced response to the chantings of the richly robed priest 
who first knelt and then stood before a most gorgeous altar. Later he 
took a position at the side of the Chapel and the worshippers passed in 
file by him, taking a fragment of bread, kissing his hand, and receiving 
his blessing. It was very impressive — for them — and we Protestants stood 
in respectful silence, trying to sense through much form and unintelligible 
ritual phrase the real presence of Him who rose again somewhere not far 
away, but probably at another site. 



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At nine A. M. we attended English service at Christ Church and were 
proud to worship with a company of khaki-clad English soldiers. At six 
P. M. we attended service at St. George's, north of the walls. The sermon 
was likewise good and helpful but the acoustics bad, though the church 
itself is elegant. Nearby this church is the Bishop's house and St. George's 
School. There are other Protestant churches in the city, including the 
Christian Alliance of America, but we had but one Sabbath here and with 
the service yet to describe the day was too full for others. 

We shall ever remember a most delightful visit by special invitation 
to the American Colony, located to the north, by which we passed cn the 
preceding afternoon. This colony is like a bubbling spring underneath 
shady groves in a desert land. It is a little America in a Moslem world 
Here aie homes like our own and here the dear old United States language 
is spoken. This colony was founded years ago by Mr. and Mrs. Fred 
Jester, who still preside over its interests and direct its welfare. Mrs. 
Jester is indeed a strong and magnetic peisonality. She is the presiding 
genius of the American Colony. Beautiful in form, feature, and character, 
with a Christian smile that never comes off and a heart filled with sympathy 
and love to all the world's unfortunate, she has through the years moved 
about Jeiusalem as an angel of love and mercy and is today the best loved 
and most influential person in the city. She was the daughter of Mr. H. 
G. Spaffard of Chicago, bcrn after the following episode. He was a promi- 
nent lawyer and Christian. Mrs. Spaffard with two daughters were sail- 
ing to Europe in the interest of their education. During a violent storm 
the vessel was wrecked and the daughters were drowned. After a week 
of great suffering the mother finally reached a cable office on the French 
coast and sent the following message to her anxious husband who had read 
of the supposed loss of the ship, "Saved alone." As a result of this ex- 
perience most heart breaking this great Christian layman wrote the cele- 
brated hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul," a hymn sung around the world 
with ever increasing popularity. A delightful religious service of songs 
and prayers was held and we greatly enjoyed its beauty and simplicity. 
All of the one hundred who compose this colony are Christians and most 
of them cultured. There were a number of fine and accomplished musicians 
with splendid voices. The rendering of the above mentioned song was 
especially beautiful and impressive under the circumstances related by the 
daughter of the composer. We were loath to depart. During our stay we 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



met various members of this colony who were profuse in kind attentions 
and courtesies. It is a communistic colony. Each puts in all he has, takes 
out whatever is needed for self and family to live on, and all work for the 
common good, there being a use for every trade or profession. At least 
one converted Jew is a member. They are premillenarianists, expecting 
Christ to come the second time, while the Jews expect the first coming of 
the Messiah. There is a separate school for their children. The teaching 
is beautifully Christian. They have large business interests, chief amongst 
which is a department store by the Jaffa Gate which is the largest com- 
mercial house in the city. They also own much land adjacent to the city. 
It is hard to keep back the suspicion that commercialism plays its part 
in this interesting colony. However, fairness compels us to state that we 
believe it is subordinated to spiritual ends and sentiment. During the war 
conditions in Jerusalem were most deplorable and tens of thousands of the 
poor died of poveity and plague. In addition the wounded were brought 
here in great numbers. Mrs. Jester organized a relief corps and virtually 
all the good women of her colony gave themselves to the work of a sweet 
and helpful ministry. She tells us that she was binding a broken leg of a 
Tuikish soldier when a nurse came and whispered softly that the English 
had entered the city. The next thing she knew she was kissing the trappings 
of the General's saddle and weeping like a child. She said that the re- 
joicing of the people of the city was unbounded. The writer well re- 
members the Sabbath morning when he knelt in his congregation and 
joined them in devout thanksgiving for this happy and significant event. 
For the rule of the Turk in Palestine, as everywhere else, was and is an 
open cancer on the world. But Palestine of all the whole world should be 
saved from his unspeakable dominion. This day it had happened and the 
world's heart was full of joy. Christian and Jew had long grieved at Infidei 
occupation of Gethsemane, Olivet, Calvary, and the Garden. The Kaiser had 
joined hands with the Sultan in holding it for Turkey, all the time slyly 
planning for its eventual possession by himself as holding the key to all 
the vast east and disjoining India and Egypt, two of England's dependencies. 
He built the Church of the Holy Redemeer and the Kaiserein Victoria 
Hospital and installed wireless and powerful searchlights on their towers 
in anticipation of military needs. The entrance of Allenby therefore into 
Jerusalem meant the breaking of Turkish misrule and oppression, as well 
as Teutonic, but the restoration of sacred places to Christianity. It is the 



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irony of history that he used in this capture a division of Mohammedan 
troops from India being transferred from France because of the severe 
climate. 

Allenby had been steadily working up from Egypt, building railroads as 
he came. He also laid pipes for both oil and water. The Turks little 
dreamed this possible. They had received from one of their revered 
teachers the saying that the Turk should not be driven out of Palestine 
until the Nile flowed into it across the desert. Allenby actually brought 
the Nile waters to Palestine and thereby made possible the fulfillment of 
the saying. Of course the two had no connection save that of a mere 
coincidence. He steadily built his march northward. Dividing his troops 
into two divisions, he directed one toward Bethlehem and back toward the Dead 
Sea behind Jerusalem. The other he led northward along the Mediterranean 
coast route and through the plain of Esdraelon and back southward along the 
route we traveled and, as mentioned in Chapter VII, a bloody battle was 
fought near Shechem. There was stiff fighting all along the line. But 
finally Jerusalem was practically surrounded and on December 9, 1917, at 
eight A. M., after several hard-fought battles, the Turks having retired 
within the city, the Mayor and Chief of Police appeared with a flag of 
truce and surrendered the city. Two days later, the 11th, at noon, he 
entered. In closing a lengthy report he says in a short twelve word para- 
graph, "At noon on the 11th I made my official entry into Jerusalem." Never 
so pregnant a statement in all the past literature of war. Condensed into 
twelve words, this statement represents the culmination of centuries of 
siege and conflict. Let us hope that never again shall the sword be un- 
sheathed in the land of the Prince of Peace. As above mentioned, his 
entrance was enthusiastically welcomed. Westward flocked crowds of pepoie 
out of the city to greet the conquerors. Armenians, Greeks, Mohammedans 
cried "Bravo," "Hurrah," and old men wept for joy while from the walls 
showers of flowers fell upon their heads. Allenby entered on foot. How 
different from that pompous cavalcade led by the Kaiser William in 1898. 
Then no gate in the city was worthy for his imperial personage to enter 
and a special gate was cut through the wall by the side of the Jaffa Gate. 
His Imperial Highness passed through on his prancing charger bedecked in 
richest trappings. The lordly rider, covered with his official insignia and 
decorations, looking neither to the right nor the left, marched in state into 
the city of the Great King. 

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General Allenby said that he was not worthy to ride into the city where 
the sacred feet of the King so often walked and he dismounted and with 
uncovered head walked humbly into the city and into the hearts of the 
world's millions. I wish that I could build a monument to him as high as the 
stars, but a higher and more enduring one will stand as long as the stars 
twinkle in the night, that one builded in the grateful appreciation and af- 
fections of all good men everywhere. In this connection I will mention tlrs 
other fact. He gave implicit command that not a single gun was to be 
fired in capturing the city so that every sacred place should be preserved 
intact. How different from the sacrilegious conduct of the Kaiser's cohorts. 
They seemed to make churches their especial targets and the skeletons of 
cathedrals of fame and beauty now stand against the sky as silent accusers 
of His Majesty's martial methods. The world remembers that the Churcn 
of the Madeline in Paris was hit by a shell from the Big Bertha and more 
than a hundred worshippers, including women and children, were dashed 
into eternity. And in Ypres the writer saw the remains of one of the most 
beautiful cathedrals of the battlefield section completely demolished. I 
have the following on reliable authority. The Turkish officers, inpsired 
by German officers who had directed them all along, had mined all the sacred 
places. These were to be destroyed on retiring so that the English should 
get the blame. General Allenby knew of this and the preceding evening 
he called a council in his tent. The officers thought that the tactics of the 
capture would be discussed. Instead he called all of them to prayer and 
for an hour they knelt, beseeching God to spare the city from such wanton 
desecrative destruction. It is significant that not a mine was exploded and 
the Turks retired in order. One of Allenby's first commands, after reading 
his four language proclamation from the steps of David's Tower, was to as- 
sure the citizens that they might proceed unmolested in their regular 
business and that those in charge of sacred places might continue un- 
disturbed, and that this policy would obtain all over Palestine. This wise 
and conciliatory policy is still in vogue. Full religious freedom to all faiths 
and cults was and is granted with full permission to operate schools as 
heretofore. All previously existing Turkish laws that are just were recog- 
nized. By way of further contrast of Turkish and British methods I will 
mention that one of the last acts of the former in Jerusalem was to arrest 
and remove the Latin Patriarch (Head of the Roman Church) and order 
the deportation of the Heads of the Greek and Armenian Churches under 



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guard with fixed bayonets. One of Allenby's first acts was to place a 
strong guard of Mohammedan troops from India, the 123rd Outram's rifles, 
over the Mosque of Omar. The ceremony of occupation was of the very 
simplest nature. The General with a guard of 150 allied soldiers all told 
quietly marched 200 yards inside of the Jaffa Gate, read the proclamation, 
religious bodies and retired. No bells from ancient belfries rang their peals 
held a simple conference with the Mayor, received the heads of the various 
of triumph, no salute jarred the walls, no shouts of victory, no hoisting of 
flags, and no hauling down of flags, for there were none. Allenby's action 
here shows him to be not only a great Christian, but a master strategist. 
This act of diplomacy is only paralleled by General Grant's suggestion to 
General Lee at Appomattox that the defeated Confederate soldiers should 
take their horses home with them to cultivate the neglected fields, and also 
his chivalrous return of Lee's sword. 

"Jerusalem is a city that is compact together," says the Psalmist. It 
was true in his day and it is true in ours. There are probably 80,000 
people within the city and 20,000 without. These 80,000 live in an area 
2,600 feet from north to south and 2,400 feet from east to west. They are 
crowded into congested districts, called "quarters." There are four, the 
Jewish, the Moslem, the Christian, and the Armenian. The Jews pre- 
dominate, there being perhaps 50,000 in the city, but elsewhere the Syrians 
are far in the majority. As a rule Syrians are Mohammedans. The "New 
Jerusalem" is outside the walls to the north and west. It is comparatively 
recent. Formerly marauding bands of Bedouins coming from across the 
Jordan made it unsafe to sleep without the walls. Now it is as safe outside 
as inside and future developments will continue in that direction. The 
walls will remain as relics of the past but will never be rebuilt. A new 
day in Palestine has dawned and whether Zionism is realized or not, a 
modern civilization is coming and with it a strong police power to protect, 
every honest man and legitimate industry. The walls as they now stand, 
allowing for repairs, were built by Sultan Suleiman in 1542, being built 
on previous foundations, some of them dating back to the days of King 
David, notably the Wailing Place, about which more will be said. The walls 
are ten feet thick and average forty feet high, some points being higher 
than others owing to the unlevel ground. The stones are large and held 
gates, the chief of which are the Damascus on the north, the Jaffa 
together by their own weight, mortar not being used. There are eight 



92 




The Golden Gate on the East.- 

"Through this gate the Master went back and forth and by it lay the 
lame man healed by Peter and John " 



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on the west, the Zion on the south, and the Golden Gate on the east. 
The others are important but smaller. The Golden Gate has long been 
closed and Moslem tradition says it will remain sealed up unil some ruler 
enters it and conquers the city. Hence it is jealously guarded, or has been. 
This gate is that through which the Master went back and forth from the 
city to Olivet, Gethsemane, and Bethany. It was called the Beautiful 
Gate (See photo.) Through it He came on His Triumphant Entrance. 
By it lay the impotent man healed by Peter and John. St. Stephen's Gate 
just to the north of the Golden Gate takes its place for travel. They of- 
fered to open it for Allenby but he declined. The Damascus Gate was that 
through which He was doubtless led away to be Crucified and through which 
He went in traveling to and from Jerusalem from the north country of 
Galilee. St. Paul went out of this gate on his way to Damascus. He went 
out of it a desperate persecutor of the church. When he returned by this 
gate he was a desperate and aggressive Christian. 



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CHAPTER IX, 
Jerusalem — Mt. Zion — Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Jerusalem — Mt. Zion — Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

Jerusalem is situated on a high mountain ridge surrounded by white lime- 
stone hills which act as natural defences against the approach of enemies. 
Only at the north is the city comparatively undefended and every invasion 
has occurred from that direction. Even there is Mount Scopus, a broad, 
high plateau overlooking the city. Here Titus encamped in his memorable 
three years' siege which ended in its destruction A. D. 70. On two sides 
there are deep valleys, once mountain gorges, Kedron on the east and 
Hinnom on the west, and these uniting on the immediate south of the city 
made it with its strong walls well nigh impregnable. Another ravine, now 
but an inconsiderable valley, the Tyropean, runs through from north to 
south, and at right angles to this another smaller one. These cut the city 
into four natural divisions called mounts. There is Mt. Zion on the south- 
west, Mt. Moriah on the southeast, Mt. Bezetha on the northwest, and Mt. 
Akra on the northeast. The first two figured largely in the ancient history 
of the city; the third, Bezetha, is the reputed location of the Crucifixion and 
Sepulchre, while the fourth is of minor consequence. Its highest point is 
Mt. Zion, 2550 feet above the Mediterranean and 3842 above the Dead Sea. 

The houses are all of stone, the streets, save two, are but alleys running 
zigzag and criscross, often covered over with sleeping apartments and along 
the sides of which streets are congested the bazarrs which do not compare 
with those of Damascus. The houses of the better class are made of a 
number of separate apartments ranged around an open court with the 
cistern in the center. The floors of the common homes are of hard cement; 
of the better homes, beautiful white and colored tiling. The roofs are flat 
as of old. It is hoped, with much probability, that much of interior Jerusalem 
will remain as at present. However, of the 210 acres comprising it there 
is much that needs to be destroyed and renovated in the interest of health 
and sanitation. 

The Jews largely predominate. In fact, most of the Jews of Palestine 
are congested in Jerusalem. There are more than 50000 here, many of 
them poor and helpless, their support being provided for by Jewish Chaluka, 
or charity. Many came hither to meet the coming Messiah and many to be 
buried in sacred soil. Most of the rest of the population are Syrians and 



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therefore Moslems. However, there are a few thousand Catholics divided 
into sects of Greeks, Romans, Armenians, Copts, and Abysinians. A few 
hundred Protestants with several churches are also here. The industries 
are the manufacture and sale of souvenirs, mother of pearl beads, amber 
necklaces, olive wood articles galore, postcards of any place in Palestine, 
pressed flowers, soap made from olive oil, pottery, and the merchandise of 
the bazarrs. Carpenter and shoe shops abound, the latter more numerous. 
Olive oil is exported in quantities, and leather is made from hides of numerous 
sheep and goats. 

The word Jerusalem means "Habitation of Peace." In the days of 
Abraham 2000 years before Christ it was called Salem (Gen. 14:18.) Later 
it was captured by the Jebusites and called Jeru-Salem, the name first oc- 
curring 1500 B. C. as a Jebusite city. Joshua captured it 1445 B. C. In 
1048 B. C. David occupied the stronghold of Zion as a residence and made 
Jerusalem his Capitol. His kingdom afterward stretched from the Euphrates 
to Egypt. Under Solomon it reached the zenith of its glory climaxed ia 
the building of the Temple. In 586 B. C. after a long siege the city was 
taken by Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed it and carried away its inhabitants 
in captivity to Babylon. In 517 B. C. they were allowed to return and to 
rebuild the Temple, though its grandeur did not approach that of Solomon. 
Sixty-two years later the walls were rebuilt. Antiochus of Syria captured 
and destroyed it 168 B. C. and grossly desecrated the Temple and Holy of 
Holies. This incited the revolt of the Maccabees, native Jews, and in 165 
B. C. its independence was secured and the Temple worship restored. In 
54 B. C. the Romans under Crassus conquered it. For 17 years it swung 
back and forth. In 37 B. C. Herod captured it and in 17 B. C. to conciliate 
the Jews rebuilt and enlarged the temple, perhaps excelling in magnificence 
that of Solomon. In 66 A. D. the Jews revolted and nearly four years 
later after a most severe siege the city was retaken, the temple de- 
stroyed and burned by Titus of Rome. In 131 A. D. the Roman Emperor 
Hadrian conquered and rebuilt the city but there was little development 
until the early part of the fourth century when Rome, being made Christian 
under Constantine, Jerusalem became a nominal Christian city. In 636 A. D. 
it fell to the Mohammedans. In 1099 the Crusaders took it by storm and 
established a Christian monarchy which remained till 1187 A. D., when the 
brilliant Moslem General Saladin made it a province of his Egyptian 
Sultancy. In 1517 the Turks incorporated it into the Ottoman Empire, where 



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it remained in oppression and hardship until the 11th day of December, 1917, 
when the Christian General Allenby entered it with bowed head and reverent 
and humble spirit. What the future holds no prophet can foretell. We be- 
lieve that a Christian nation will govern righteously and God's plans for 
Jerusalem will have a square chance to ripen under England's mandate. 

The Jerusalem of today is 130 feet above that of King David's day and 
a hundred above that of "David's Greater Son," Jesus. This is disappointing 
to those literalists who would know the exact spot where any sacred even:; 
occurred and even the identical paths His holy feet sanctified. In addition 
religious superstition has multiplied locations of every event however trivial 
that the prolific imagination of the Oriental could invent. You have to sift 
and sift and sift. You will be able to know that the Pools, the Tombs, the 
Hills, including Olivet, portions of the old Temple walls, possibly Gethe- 
semane and Gordon's Calvary at least are authentic. Others may be so. 
But what does it matter? It is Jerusalem, City of David and of Jesus. 

Two hundred yards inside the Jaffa Gate is the Citadel, or Tower of 
David. It is the most solidly built structure in the city. It dates back in 
its foundations to David's day and tradition says that some of its rooms 
were then existing and one is pointed out where he composed many of his 
Psalms. Another is designated as his reception room. It is a fine specimen 
of Jewish wall masonry. The Citadel borders the Armenian Quarter. At 
its base is a large open space where produce of all sorts from the country 
about is sold, melons and cucumbers and fruit as well as staple articles of 
traffic. In this Armenian Quarter are few places of special interest. There 
is the Church of St. James, where he is said to have been beheaded when 
Herod stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, killing James 
with the sword. It is within the immense Armenian convent, very rich and 
beautifully decorated and noted for its exquisite tortoise shell ornamenta- 
tion. Before this convent is a large yard and some fine pine trees. The 
aged gate keeper was slow in hearing our ringing of the little bell. The 
old priest was kind and courteous in showing us over the convent. It wiil 
contain 3000 people. Just outside the Zion gate, which is nigh this convent, 
is most of Mount Zion, the ancient City of David, the walls having been 
changed within modern times. There is the palace of Caiaphus, containing 
the traditional prison of Christ, the place of His trial, and Peter's denial. 
A pillar is shown you as the one upon which sat the. cock who crowed to 



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Peter's discomfort. There was a court, open but overhung with a large 
grape vine. One of our party innocently suggested that it was more natural 
that the rooster was sitting in the vine. The one is as reasonable as the 
other. Here you are shown the stone the angels rolled away from Christ's 
sepulcher, as they say. Not far south of this is a mosque called Neby David, 
or the Tomb of David. Various Scripture references seem to favor this 
location. The Tomb was in a hall or chapel and was a large sarcophagus 
some ten feet long and six feet high. It was covered over with soft tapestry 
with gold embroidery in profusion. Over it hung a canopy of a combination 
of loud colors. A door leads to the real tomb below. Two candles burn 
continuously before this door. Tradition says that in 1145 A. D. two work- 
men accidentally broke through the old wall into a cavern containing the 
tombs of David, Solomon and other kings of Judah. A stormy gust of wind 
blew from within and smote them to the floor, where they remained in great 
fear till evening when a voice commanded them to leave the place which 
it is presumed they failed not to do without ceremony. They had seen 
much gold covered furniture and chests of valuables. Reporting the find 
to the Patriarch of Jerusalem it was identified by him as the sepulchers 
of the Kings of Judah, and sealed up. One wonders what he did with the 
chests and the gold. One Benjamin of Tudela recites this legend. In the 
same building is a chapel 30 by 50 feet, the reputed "upper chamber" where 
Christ ate the Last Supper with His disciples and where descended later 
the Holy Ghost. It presents the strange sight of a Christian church in a 
Moslem mosque. In fact, the chapel is in two divisions separated by a 
screen. In one division prays the Christian, in another mumbles the Moham- 
medan. 

Re-entering the Zion Gate and passing northward up Zion street we 
come to Mt. Bezetha in the northwest corner of the city. This is called 
the Christian Quarter. Here is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It is 
an immense building, 230 feet from east to west and 200 from north to 
south. As Stoddard says, it is "a sacred exposition ground." In fact it is 
a museum of religious freaks and fancies. It was erected by the Empress 
Helena in 335 A. D. on the site she decided was Calvary and the Tomb of 
Christ. Another more tenable theory will be advanced later. More reputed 
events have transpired on this small spot than any one generation could 
imagine. It has taken the combined credulity of sixteen centuries to as- 
semble this mosaic of religious curios. Everything of moment from the 



102 




The Ceremony of the Holy Fire. 

"A mass of waving lights fill the place and a larger multitude outside 
catch up the frenzy." 



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birth of Adam to the death of Sir Philip d'Aubigny, one of the signers of 
the Magna Charta, is shown you. His grave is here. But a few of the 
many inventions can be mentioned. We first enter a large court and pass 
into the church past Mohammedan guards. Near the door is the Stone of 
Unction where Christ's body was laid for the anointing after removal from 
the Cross. A few feet away is Golgotha. By strange coincidence this site 
is the reputed grave of Adam, supposedly that the blood of the atonement 
might conveniently fall on the dust of the first offender. A riven reck 
nearby is shown you as having occurred at the time of the Crucifixion and 
you are allowed to thrust your arm into it. Nearby is a chapel containing 
three holes in the reck, two feet apart, and are the locations of the three 
crosses. This was found by St. Helena herself. Her way of distinguishing 
the true cross from the two others discovered is as original as it is interest- 
ing. They were taken singly into a room of a woman who was very ill. 
When that of the repentent thief was presented her suffering increased 
moderately. When that of the impenitent thief was brought in she went 
into violent paroxysms of pain. When the true cross entered she was im- 
mediately healed and left her bed praising God. Enough pieces of this 
cross have been sold to build a modern city and enough nails, if recast, to 
build the Brooklyn Bridge. Strange to say, however, we had no opportunity 
to purchase. Either the stock was exhausted, the factory was shut down, 
or the vendors were dead and their successors not appointed when we were 
theie on two visits. In a large antechamber connected with the maia 
Orthodox Church Chapel there is a most interesting stone or pillar. It is 
round and stands four feet above the floor. It is the identical spot where 
God grabbed up the handful of dirt out of which He made Adam. It is 
stated that this spot is the exact center of the earth. I could not help but 
believe it for my Maury's geography reliably taught me that the same claim 
might truthfully be made from any spot on this earthly ball and that the 
horizon was always the same distance away. We have found certain towns 
and cities in our wanderings that laid serious claims to the same distinction. 
Really we know a few individuals who believe their home town is that 
and themselves the axes on which the world revolves. Blame not the 
Jerusalemites. Near by the Adam factory is the tomb of Melchizedek. One 
wonders what became of poor Eve. We presume that she was excommuni- 
cated and debarred from burial in this sacred precinct because it was she 
who introduced sin into the world. Some day perhaps her grave may be 



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found hard by that of her husband and a commemorative tablet affixed. Rome 
has canonized Joan of Arc and Savonarola, whom they killed. There is yet 
hope for Mother Eve. In the center of the Church is a large Rotunda, the 
dome of which is 65 feet in diameter and emits a flood of light upon the 
Holy Sepulcher which stands underneath it. This Rotunda and large Chapel 
belongs equally to all sects while each participating sect has a separate 
Chapel somewhere in the building. The Sepulcher is located within a small 
Chapel cut out of the rock 26 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 10 feet high. It 
is encased in white marble so that no part of the original rock is seen. The 
Sepulcher itself is a small enclosure six by seven feet containing the Sar- 
cophagus, or Tomb of Christ. Pilgrims come in vast numbers from great 
distances and reverently bow and kiss the stones of the marble floor and 
the surface of the Tomb. At Easter time vast hordes of Russian Pilgrims 
assemble here for the ceremony of the Holy Fire. On Easter Eve the Fire 
Bishop enters this small Sepulcher enclosure. Fire descends from heaven, 
it is claimed, and lights the candles on the altar. The Bishop, who is alone 
in the Sepulcher, passes out the fire through holes in the walls. A bundle 
of burning candles are passed to the priests and these in turn for bakshish 
pass them to the multitudes of pilgrims that jam the church, each having 
purchased candles. In a few moments a mass of waving lights fills the 
place and a larger multitude without the building catch up the frenzy, and 
soon fifty thousand fanatics shout and weep and sometimes fight fiercely m 
their zeal. In 1834 the Mohammedan guards killed four hundred Christians, 
thinking that they wished to attack them when they were only overcome 
with religious frenzy. 

Many other interesting locations might be discussed, but time and space 
forbid. These are the principal ones. In a later chapter we shall discuss 
another and more probable location of the Crucifixion and the Garden Tomb. 
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is neither architectural nor proportionate. 
It seems but a growth of Chapels as occasion demanded. It has twice been 
partly destroyed, its latest repairing occurring in 1868. Inside it is 
gorgeously decorated, especially in the main Greek chapel near the 
Sepulcher and candles are burning all about the large altar covered with 
satin and velvet trimmed in gold lace and embroidery. As formerly men- 
tioned, we attended High Mass in this Church and were impressed with its 
music, its elaborate ritual, and devout celebration by a large number of 
worshippers. The Armenian Chapel is not so elaborate or gorgeous. We 



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attended High Mass there but it was not so impressive. Here they kissed 
the Bible instead of the hand of the priest. One mother lifted her two- 
year-old child to kiss the Book and receive the blessing. The tot under- 
stood how to do it if not its meaning. He will grow up a devout and fanatical 
defender of the faith. 

This church is held jointly by the Greeks, the Romans, the Armenians, 
the Copts, the Syrians, and the Abysinians, the first two being the most 
largely interested. Each sect takes its turn in making pilgrimages and each 
has a separate Chapel which is unmolested by the others. However, ther? 
have been serious disturbances by these rival sects. In the following chapter 
we will visit the site of Solomon's Temple and many other points of great 
interest. 



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CHAPTER X. 
Jerusalem — The Temple Area. 



CHAPTER X. 



Jerusalem — The Temple Area. 

The most authentic, as well as the most ancient and interesting site n 
Jerusalem, interesting to Jew, Christian, and Moslem, is the Temple Area, 
Haram-esh-Sherif, on which stands the Mosque of Omar. The whole area 
comprises thirty-six acres, one-sixth of the whole of the city. In the center 
of the Temple Area, which is a plaza with flag tiling floor, is the Dome of 
the Eock, miscalled the Mcsque of Omar. It is not a mosque but simply a 
structure housing the celebrated Rock. The real mosque is that of El-Aksa 
nearby. This, the most celebrated rock in the world, is the center of Mount 
Moriah and Melchizedek is said to have sacrificed here and Abraham came 
to this spot for the offering up of Isaac. Under the Jebusites it was owned 
by Araunah, or Ornan, and used by him as a threshing floor. When the 
plague fell upon Israel, destroying 70,000 men from Dan to Beer-sheba be- 
cause of David's sin in numbering Israel, he here appeased the wrath of 
the destroying angel, purchased it, and built an altar. The Ark of the 
Covenant was brought here from Kirjath Jearim and preparations were made 
for erection of the "magnifical" Temple of Solomon. In this Temple the 
Rock was under the Holy of Holier or Sanctum Sanctorum. 

The Temple was the lineal successor of the Tabernacle of the Wilder- 
ness during that period of Isreal's migratory history. The nation was now 
assuming a stabilized status and Jerusalem was the Capitol with David as 
its renowned King. A fixed center of Divine worship was a necessity whither 
the tribes might go up and maintain a religious and national solidarity. 
David therefore began to prepare such an house in keeping with the ex- 
tensive grandeur of his kingdom and the majesty of Jehovah who had so 
richly blessed them. Because David was a man of war and blood God did 
not allow him to build the edifice, but only to prepare for its building by 
his son and successor, Solomon. Solomon followed his father's plans and 
after seven years of systematic labcr and abundant energy the Temple was 
completed. It was modeled after its forerunner, the Tabernacle, its di- 
mensions being twice as large. The timbers were furnished from the forest- 
of Lebanon by Hiram, King of Tyre, now a confederate and the father-in- 
law of Solomon. They were conveyed in floats to Joppa and thence overland 
more than thirty miles to Jerusalem. The stones were cut out of the 

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quarries beneath the city and were shaped and sized by explicit design and 
under daily direction of Master Masons, and every stone fitted into its place 
in the building with such exact nicety that not a sound of saw, hammer, or 
other tcol was heard as it rose in lordly grandeur above the surrounding 
city, and when it was completed it seemed more the work of the Supreme 
Architect of the Universe than of mere human hands. It would not com- 
pare in size with many of our mammoth buildings of today but in finish and 
in furnishings it was exquisite beyond compare. See I Kings VI and VII. 
In its erection were used 3 Grand Masters, 3,300 overseers who were expert 
Master Masons, 80,000 Fellow Craftsmen, and 70,000 common laborers called 
entered apprentices. The structure was completed in the month Zif, answer- 
ing to our April B. C. 1008. Then the Ark was brought into the Holy of 
Holies and God rained fire from heaven on the sacrifice, thereby attesting 
His approval of the plans and their completion. Solomon, amidst great re- 
joicing of assembled multitudes, offered an unparalleled prayer of dedica- 
tion while the people shouted Amen. It filled a great place in Israel's his- 
tory but Jeroboam alienated the Ten Tribes and substituted at Bethel the 
worship of false Egyptian gods, and 240 years after Solomon's death the 
Assyrians carried off the northern tribes into captivity, 722 B. C., and 134 
years later, or B. C. 588, the remaining Two Tribes were carried by Nebuched- 
nezzer into captivity to Babylon, destroying the Temple and taking its vessels 
away. Seventy years of hardship followed and then Cyrus, King of Persia, 
having conquered Babylon, allowed the Jews to return under Zerubabel and 
to rebuild the temple, 42,360 Jews with funds and necessary equipment being 
furnished. It was smaller and less pretentious than that of Solomon. It 
was destroyed by Antioehus Epiphenes 167 B. C, this apostate building a 
statue of Jupiter in the Holy of Holies and sacrificing a sow on the altar 
as a climax of his wanton blasphemy. For 150 years, or until B. C. 17, it 
was not restored. In that year Herod, being then King over the Jews, 
under Rome, and being anxious to conciliate them, lavished his wealth on a 
new Temple that was completed A. D. 29. It was probably far more 
elaborately and expensively built than that of Solomon, but its decorations 
were not so rich or delicate in finish. The Rabbis had a saying that, "The 
world is like an eye. The ocean surrounding it is the white of the eye; its 
black is the world itself, the pupil is Jerusalem." But central in their de- 
votion stood the Temple Mount. Terrace above terrace its courts arose, 
till high above the city within the enclosure of marble cloisters, cedar roofed 



112 




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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



and richly frescoed with gold, it glistened in the sunlight "like a mount of 
snow fretted with golden pinnacles." But A. D. 70 the armies of Titus, as- 
sisted by internal traitors and dissensions, sacked the city and left not one 
stone upon another, carrying away to Rome 97,000 prisoners and causing the 
death of more than a million inhabitants by war and pestilence. Jesus 
came and flung Himself between Jerusalem and death as its only hope. But 
they would not. The destruction He so graphically foretold was fulfilled 
in all its awful severity. Titus gave orders that the Temple should be 
spared, but a soldier flung a faggot into it and the Jews immediately burned 
it to prevent its fall to the Romans. From then till 133 A. D. not a building 
stood within the city that had been. Jackals and foxes burrowed beneath 
the massive stones of the Temple and howled through the lonely night, 
while owls chanted their weird serenade to the moon. Sixty-three years 
later the emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city, calling it Aelia Capitolina, or the 
Heavenly Capitol. No Jews were allowed to enter it, under penalty of death. 
He built a temple to Jupiter over the Rock Moriah and placed an equestrian 
statue of himself on its eastern front. In 535 A. D., after Rome became 
Christian, the Emperor Justinian built a church dedicated to the Virgin 
Mary on the site of this temple. In 637 A. D., when the Mohammedans 
conquered Palestine, this church was turned into a mosque, and when the 
Crusaders wrested it from their power it was made again into a church, 
and finally Saladin and his Moslem successors changed it back to the beauti- 
ful Mosque of Omar, which now adorns the crest of Mount Moriah, "a 
crown of crowns, infinitely sacred, infinitely beautiful." This mosque is 
situated in an elevated quadrangle 1,000 feet one way and 1,600 another. 
The building, Kubbit es Sakhra, is an octagon, each side being 56 feet, 7 
inches. The outside walls are of bluish-green tiles down to the window sills, 
and below that with marble, once glistening white, now colored with age 
and dust. Burned into the tiling are quotations from the Koran. The 
central dome is ninety feet high and forty feet in diameter and covers the 
Rock. Hence the common name of the building, The Dome of the Rock. The 
interior is most beautifully finished in superb mosaic inlaid work. The 
windows emit a composite light from thousands of glass fragments that 
reminds one of descriptions of some oriental palace in the days of Haroun-e!- 
Rashid. A circular corridor is within, and close to the Rock, later described, 
is a row of pillars taken from other buildings and some dating from 
Solomon's Temple, it is claimed. Another smaller row encircles the famous 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Eock itself. This sacred stone is fifty-eight feet long and forty-four feet 
wide and stands five to six feet above the tiled floor. An iron paling of 
fine workmanship surrounds it. In addition to other traditions is that Moslem 
one that Mahomet ascended to heaven from this Rock. His footprint is 
shown ycu. The angel Gabriel, seeing the Rock clinging to his feet and 
knowing that nothing eaithly should enter heaven, reached forth his hand 
and snatched it loose from his feet, how much skin attaching to the stone 
we are not told, but we constantly expected to have a chance to purchase 
some of this cuticle, but like the scales from Saul's eyes and the nails from 
the cross, the supply was exhausted. On the side of the Rock you see the 
prints of the angel's fingers where he seized it in this emergency. When 
the Shiek showing us over the place had his back turned the writer, having 
unusually long laims and narrow frame, edged his shoulder in between the 
palings and actually put his fingers in the finger prints of the angel Gabriel. 
He later stretched out in the tomb of a king and secured a left hind foot 
of a rabbit from the banks of the Jordan. Such rare privileges come to 
but few. Near this Rock is a casket containing four hairs from Mahomet's 
beard. These hairs will be stretched across the Kedron valley on the dreadful 
Day of Judgment. Mahomet will sit on the wall near the Golden Gate (a 
jutting stone high up on the wall being pointed out to you as Mahomet's 
seat for that august event), while Jesus will sit on the Mount of Olivet, 
supposedly on a minaret we ascended to view the city, and each will hold 
an end of the hair of the prophet. The Kedron underneath will then be a 
. raging torrent of flame. Good Moslems will come first and will be able to 
cross without difficulty. Jews come next, will try to cross and failing will 
call upon Moses for help. He will answer that he cannot do so and they 
will be swept away. Next will come the Christians who will fail to cross 
and failing will call on Christ to help them. He will answer as did Moses. 
Then unfaithful Moslems will come up and call upon Moses and upon Christ, 
neither of whom can help. They will then call upon Mahomet, who will 
mercifully turn them into fleas and himself into a wooly ram. He will com- 
mand them to jump into his wool, and will run with them on the hair across 
the fiery torrent. Note that he runs across on the hair he is holding. This 
is Mohammedan theology. The only commendable point about it is that 
they all have to cross over to the side where Christ holds His end of the 
hair, an unconscious concession. You are shown also in the mosque a small 
square of green marble having nineteen holes, fifteen empty and four with 



116 



i 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



nails in them. Originally Mahomet drove a nail in each hole and one drops 
out each hundred years and when the last one is out will come the end of 
the world and the above judgment episode. The devil slipped in and pulled 
out the fifteen missing nails and was only prevented from getting all of 
them and thus precipitating long ago that awful event by the timely ap- 
pearance of Gabriel. Blessings on Gabriel. He always comes up just at 
the right time. This mosque is second only in importance in the Moslem 
world to that of Mecca because, as they claim, of its association with Moses 
and Jesus. This is the first intimation we have received that Moses was 
ever here. We had always thought that he died, or was spirited away by 
angels from the Moabite mountains, and was not allowed to enter the Holy 
Land of Promise. An underground channel is reputed to connect Mecca 
with this mosque and as proof of it a certain beggar dropped a cocoanut 
bowl in which he collected bakshish down the sacred well at Mecca. It was 
found at Job's well near the walls of Jerusalem and carried to the mosque 
and hung up. The beggar later saw and identified it. Q. E. D. 

Near by the Dome of the Rock is the real Mosque El-Aksa. It was 
formerly a church and is a beautiful building. On the window bars hang 
old shredded rags, each a token of some vow fulfilled. In it are two pillars 
about ten inches apart. Whoever can squeeze through will enter Paradise 
and also prove his legitimate birth. Many have tried to make the squeeze 
and the stone is worn away, but few have succeeded, for which reason the 
reader may infer. One individual killed himself in the effort and it is now 
prohibited by law and enclosed with iron bars. We found a similar instance 
in the Mosque cf Amer in Cairo. In this Mosque Ei-Atsa is the Well of the 
Leaf. Mahomet promised that one of his faithful followers should enter 
heaven before death. A certain Sheik dropped his bucket into this well 
or cistern. Descending after it a door opened for him leading out into fx 
most beautiful garden. He wandered about for a while and plucking a leaf 
returned. The leaf never withered and the door has never been found. But 
Moslems regard this well as one of the gates of Paradise. 

The Stables of Solomon are under the southeast corner of the temple 
area and are said to have housed a thousand of his horses. The chiseled 
holes in the corners of the square upholding columns were for tying the 
halters. On the north side of the city are the quarries whence came the 
rock for the building of the temple and for many successive buildings. It is 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



* 



an immense cave reaching far back under the city. It is not at all safe for 
one to visit here wtihout a competent guide. Enough stone has been re- 
moved to build a modern American city. As has been stated, Jerusalem 
is on a limestone hill. Back within this quarry we found a square cavern 
with rude stations of stone on three sides, east, west, and south, but none 
on the north. We also saw where a large keystone had been cut from the 
parent rock. There is the outline as plain as day. It is supposed to have 
been, and we believe rightly so, the keystone of the Temple of Solomon, 
symbolic of that Rejected Stone that holds up the Temple of Christian fabric, 
keeps the dome of Nature in its place, "and guards His children well." 

On the east side of the mosque is the Dome of the Chain, or David's 
Judgment Seat. It is a small pavilion with tessellated floor and fine smaH 
columns. The mosque is said to have been modeled after its architecture. 
From the middle of its dome once suspended a chain hung from heaven. 
When one accused of crime grasped it, if it held intact, he was innocent. 
If a link broke, he was lying and therefore guilty. The following incident 
is related of the last time it was used. A Mohammedan wished to make 
his pilgrimage to Mecca and entrusted his bag of valuables to a certain Jew 
to keep till his return. But the Jew declared that he had returned it to 
him. They were brought under the chain. The Jew handed a small package 
to the Moslem and asked him to hold it a moment for him and then, solemnly 
declaring that he had given him back his gold, grasped the chain. It did 
not break. He reached out his hand and received back the package, which 
was the original one in question. The Jew always comes out on top and 
the Moslem's knowledge of his innate shrewdness is one of his chief causes 
of such violent opposition to his coming back to Palestine. They say that 
he will soon own the land and control the money. 

Underneath the Rock in Omar is a cave some twenty feet in diameter 
and six feet high. It was probably used to collect the blood of animals slain 
overhead in the sacrifices, as there is a hole through the Rock to this cham- 
ber. The Rock is claimed, however, by the Shiek of the Mosque to be 
miraculously suspended from heaven and this cave to have been the prayer 
chamber of Abraham, David, Solomon, Elijah, and Mahomet, the latter 
being too tall and when his head struck the rock overhead a hole was mad?. 
He was the original "bonehead." It was three feet across. Being similarly 
elongated, the writer put his head in the hole made by this famous per- 
sonage. Another point scored. No other member of our party could do 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



that. Near by underneath are vast cisterns made by Solomon and kept 
secret by him. They contained enough water to last three years in case 
of siege, another evidence of his wisdom. 

The question is often asked as to what became of the Ark of the 
Covenant. That is one of the mysteries of the ages. All conjecture is use- 
less. It disappeared from the Temple when it was plundered by Nebuched- 
nezzar. The Jews believe that it was concealed in some secret vault under- 
neath the building and that it will be revealed by the Messiah when He 
comes. Many Christians also believe it to have been thus hidden. But no 
such hidden vault has been discovered, though apparently every recess 
underneath the city and the Temple has been explored. There was no Ark 
in Zerubbabel's Temple. Had it been carried to Babylon it would have been 
known during the seventy years' captivity. And the wise and benevolent King 
Cyrus would have allowed its return as the most essential element of success in 
the building of the Temple and reclamation of Palestine. If it was not 
miraculously preserved, it long since has returned to dust. If it was so pre- 
served, no human quest will find it until God's time to bring it forth shall 
come. 



1 19 



The Wailing Place. 

4i He will save, He will save, 
He'll save His Israel speedily." 



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CHAPTER XI. 
The Wailing Place — The City's Environs. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Wailing Place— The City's Environs. 

"Lamenting the falling condition of Jerusalem and praying for the return 
of its former glory." 

One other famous and very interesting relic within the walls remains to 
be visited. I refer to the Jewish Wailing Place. It is the outside southwest 
wall of the Temple area. Here in a little street not more than 15 feet wide 
can be found any afternoon now, but more especially on Fridays, numbers 
of devout Jews from various corners of the earth. Most of those present 
on the two occasions of our visit were from Algeria. Excavators have 
identified this section as a part of the original Temple wall. It is sixty feet 
to the top of the present wall built on these foundations. Jews never enter 
the present Temple area as it is blasphemed by the occupation of the unholy 
Moslem and his so-called Mosque. Until recently he could visit this sacred 
wall only by paying a special tax. However under British rule he is per- 
mitted to wail here to his heart's content "without money and without 
price." 

The following is a translation of the Wailing Place hymn often used at 
sundown Friday, which is the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. It with its 
ancient melody possibly dates back to the days of Ezra. This makes it one 
of the oldest musical compositions extant. The words are as fololws. They 
are expressive of Jewish yearnings then as well as today. The translation 
is by Dr. Frankl, a learned Jew. 

"He is great, He is good, 
He'll build His temple speedily. 
In great haste, in great haste, 
In our own day speedily. 

He will save, He will save, 
He'll save His Israel speedily. 
At this time now, O Lord, 
In our own day speedily. 
Lord, save — Lord, save, 
Save thine Israel speedily. 

Lord bring back, Lord bring back, 

Bring back Thy people speedily; 

restore to their land, 

To their Salem speedily. 

Bring back to Thee, bring back to Thee, 

To their Savior, speedily." 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



There were fifty in this party we observed. Their peculiar dress 
with its many colors, the long bearded patriarch reading his book while 
others wailed weirdly in response, leaning on their arms against the wall, 
kissing it and beating it and weeping and wailing and praying, their bodies 
convulsing, while tears coursed down their faces, could not fail to impress 
one with their deep sincerity. Some professional wailers represent absent 
patrons and these show formal insincerity in their manner, but most of 
these are sincere, judging from appearances. They are lamenting the fallen 
condition of Jerusalem and praying for tire return of its former glory and 
the coming of the Messiah. Would that they might believe that He is here 
building the New Jerusalem in the universal hearts of men. Nails are 
driven between the stones, each nail a prayer. Also written prayers are 
stuffed into crevices between the stones, prayers of absent ones unable to 
come for physical or financial reasons. The writer saw a light blue paper 
protruding and innocently (?) insinuated himself into the crowd and back- 
ing up against the wall fished the envelope from its hiding place. He wishes 
to disclaim any irreverence. He wanted this valuable souvenir and believed 
that God could hear the prayers just as well in America as in Jerusalem. 
We give here the translation made us by a learned Rabbi from the original 
Yiddish. The name only is omitted: 

"I, , am standing near the west wall of our temple in 

Jerusalem to pray in this holy place for my sick mother, , 

daughter of , who is sick in bed for years. May the Lord 

grant her a perfect healing to strengthen and preserve her alive and send 
her a speedy healing from heaven. Amen. 

"I also pray for my friends in that they may prosper 

in all their undertakings for their sustenance and support. May the Lord 
never let us be in failure of food and sustain us with honor. Amen. 

"Have mercy, Lord, upon Israel and upon Jerusalem and rebuild thy 
great and holy House that thy name is called upon it speedily in our days 
with deliverance and prosperity, blessing and salvation. Amen." 

Another paragraph mentions several friends who are also praying, and 
one begs for "peace in his family" and two others "for the rebuilding of 
the Holy House in our days speedily." 

This prayer is interesting in that it reveals the human heart of the Jew 
and his simple faith in asking for personal blessings for self and loved 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



ones. He believes in faith healing. May his prayer for his ill mother be 
answered. May his friends prosper. We must not allow ourselves to forget 
that the Jew is a human being, a brother in the flesh, and that we owe him 
an unshiftable obligation to treat him as such. 

As Shylock's soliloquy truly puts it, "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? 
Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions — fed 
with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same 
diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter 
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you 
tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?" As Mr. 
Nahum Sokolow, a national Zionist leader, said in a great thanksgiving 
service for the deliverance of Palestine, held in the London Opera House. 
December 2, 1917, "The Jew is able to take care of himself; all he asks is 
brotherhood." The Anglo-Saxon has been his friend, and his only real 
friend. Let us not forget that he gave us our religion, our Bible, our Christ, 
the Christ we love and the Christ w© trust he will some day adore. In a 
later chapter we shall probably refer again to the Wailing Place and the 
Zionist aspirations in Palestine. We have now visited the Church of the 
Holy Sepulcher, the Temple Mosque of Omar, and lastly the Wailing Place, 
the three shrines of the Holy City, those of Christian, Moslem and Jew. 

Near St. Steven's gate, within the walls is the Church of St. Anne, built 
to commemorate the residence of her, the mother of the Virgin, and the 
birthplace of Mary, and the burial place of her father, Joachim. Here, deep 
under the foundations, is a pool said to be the pool of Bethesda having five 
porches where the impotent man was healed by Christ and in whose porches 
or arcades "lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, 
waiting for the moving of the waters." It was believed that "an angel went 
down at a certain season and troubled the water" and the first to step into 
it was immediately healed. However, the Fountain of the Virgin at the 
southeast corner of the city wall, according to Dr. Robinson and other 
eminent authorities, presents the most plausable view. Here he observed 
the moving of the waters and this one element of the account of the miracle 
is vital. At one measurement it rose five inches and at another twelve. The 
physical explanation offered is that it is connected with its source to the 
north of the city by an underground siphon. The water enters and fills up 
a reservoir somewhere underground and when it fills the supply empties 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



at once and some time must elapse until it discharges again. This may, 
and probably does, explain the troubling of the water, but the healing of 
this impotent individual was a divine miracle. However, the explanation of 
the angel troubling the water is omitted in the best manuscripts. 

We shall never forget a donkey ride around the walls. The Palestine 
donkey is a remarkable little creature. Blessings on him. If the rest of 
us did as much in proportion to size and opportunity as the brave little 
donkey, our fortunes would be greatly improved and the world much bettered. 
He has never received the recognition and praise he so richly merits. Living 
on the scantiest fare, enduring overloading, punishment, and excessive hard- 
ships, he picks his nimble way along with ever faithful and unresisting 
tread. Often his burden covers his little form, only his head and feet in 
evidence. On the top of this load sits complacently his lord and master. 
Mr. G. K. Chesterton, in his characteristic style, delivers himself of a 
diatribe against this other little donkey who is too far away to bray back 
at him. He calls him an "anarchist," demolishing fences, kicking his friends, 
and making himself a general nuisance. I do not believe it. All the donkeys 
we met, that is the four-footed ones, were sociable, clever, dependable 
creatures. One lady at the dining table at Damascus remarked that she 
wished that she might take a little donkey home with her. A companion 
laconically asked, "What's the use?" The implication was as rude and un- 
gallant as it was laconic. However, the laugh was general and hearty. 
Each of our donkeys on this ride possessed some distinguished name; the 
same with our camels at the pyramids later. Mine was Moses, and his 
patience, meekness, and plodding persistence did not belie the qualities of 
the great Leader. Each separate donky had a driver who punched him along 
at a jog trot often uncomfortable to the rider, but words of remonstrance 
seemed useless. The saddles are large fat pads that cover the back of the 
donkey and the rider sits back over the hips. Leaving the Jaffa Gate and 
going southward down the Valley of Hinnom and on the Bethlehem road 
we come first to the Hill of Evil Counsel to our southern right. Here Judas 
agreed to betray his Master, and just to the north is the Field of Blood, where 
the traitor ended his sad career. A little further southeast where Hinnom 
and Kedron meet is Job's well, or En-Rogel. Here Adonijah celebrated his 
coronation as king, and also Jonathan and Ahimaaz hid here receiving in- 
telligence of Absalom's rebellious movements against King David and re- 
porting to him. A lad detected them and informed Absalom and this in- 

128 



Gordon's Calvary. 
"A green hill far away without a city wall." 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



telligence squad hid themselves in a well in Bahurim. This Job's well is 
125 feet deep and overflows after a rain. Going: up the Tyropean, or Kedron 
Valley, we pass to the left the dirty village of Silwan, Siloam, and its 
Pool of Siloam. A double flight of steps leads down to the water. Women 
are washing garments in it and wading about, notwithstanding that its sup- 
plies are used constantly for drinking. Others are bearing away filled 
waterpots, all the company conversing excitedly about the simple routine 
happenings of their little village. It has been fully established that this 
Pool of Siloam is connected with the Fountain of the Virgin described above 
as the probable place of healing. The water rises intermittently here also. 
Furthermore the celebrated Siloam inscription fully proves this fact. It 
is a most interesting account. This inscription was found on the walls of 
the connecting tunnel 1,760 feet long by a boy who crawled into it from its 
lower side in 1880. The next year an accurate impression was made and 
translated. It recites that the tunnel began at each end at the same time; 
that the tunnelers heard each other's picks and thus guided were only a 
few feet apart when they broke through. Dr. Robinson, the celebrated and 
scholarly explorer, crawled through the whole length of the tunnel. From 
this pool came the water for the feast of the Tabernacles brought in a golden 
bowl. Christ referred to this in John VII: 37 when He stood in the Temple 
and cried, "If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink." 

We are now opposite the Temple Area. On the hill one-half mile out is 
Olivet, and between that and us is Gethsemane, both of which we will later 
discuss. Near us now are three square rock mausoleums, the Tombs of 
Absalom, St. James, and Zachariah. Near these tombs is the Jewish ceme- 
tery. From time immemorial Jews have been interred here. Large numbers 
from all over the world gather about the Holy City as the sunset of life ap- 
proaches so that they may be gathered to their fathers and buried in sacred 
soil. Our outgoing vessel contained several such pilgrims. One fine old 
patriarch with long white beard was so tenderly attentive to his little old 
wife who was ill and fearful lest she should die before reaching the home- 
land. They stayed together and the old gentleman continually read aloud 
to the wife the Old Testament prophecies and promises in his own tongue. 
This aged couple won our affectionate esteem. We never saw them again, 
but we saw a certain Rabbi again at Tiberius. The Jews believe that the 
Judgment will occur on Olivet, that the hill will be split in twain and those 
nearest the spot in rising will have a decided advantage. Passing around 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 

to the north and by the Damascus gate and Calvary we come to the Tomb 
of the Judges, a deep catacomb with rock-hewn vaults sufficient to ac- 
commodate many bodies. One-fourth mile northwest is a similar burial 
place of the Kings of Israel. We crawled into these vaults and found them 
all clean and empty. We stretched our frame in one of them. In these 
rock shelves there was not room for a coffin and hence the bodies were 
wrapped in linen after anointing. 

Two hundred yards north and east of the Damascus Gate is Gordon's 
Calvary, named for General Charles George Gordon, who spent several years 
studying the question heie from every angle. However, Otto Thenius <n 
1849 was the pioneer in this theory that has become accepted by such a 
large number in latter years. It is elevated sufficiently above the city to 
be seen afar off. It is beside the main road to Nablus and to Damascus 
and it is called "The Skull Hill" from its peculiar resemblance to a skull. 
It is rounded like one and has two openings in the face resembling eye holes 
and below, the outline of a mouth. It fulfills the scriptural account. It 
surely was "without the gate" cf the city, which cannot be said as to the 
St. Helena site in the Church of the Sepulcher. The top of this hill is 
covered by Moslem graves and a depression is filled with bones. It is the 
traditional place for execution of criminals. At its base is a small garden 
owned and kept by a London lady of wealth. Here is a tomb discovered 
by excavation and is doubtless the "new made tomb wherein never man was 
laid" but in which lay the Crucified One, and from which He came forth 
on that glad Easter morn long ago with the tread of a conqueror over the 
dark domain of death, a victory in which you and I may glory. Adjoining 
the Calvary site is the Giotto cf Jeremiah, considered by some as Christ's 
tomb. It is a natural limestone cave facing south, and a fourteenth century 
tradition affirms that the prophet wrote his lamentations here and it became 
his burial place. It is full of rocky tombs, empty cisterns, etc. 

All these locations in the environs of the city we inspected on the 
memorable donkey ride. It now remains for giving account of a most happy 
hour at its close. Our readers will recall that in the opening chapter we 
presented our genial and accommodating dragoman, George Jallouk, of 
Jerusalem. This afternoon we were received by his good family and other 
relatives in his refined Christian home. Oriental hospitality refined by 
Christianity characterized the occasion. How beautifully welcome they 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 

» 

made us feel. We sat in a large veranda over which grew a lovely grape 
vine laden with tempting bunches. The Jallouk family are highly esteemed 
in Jerusalem as well as wherever known. They are all Protestant Christians 
and descendants of the Samaritans. If Christian missions had done nothing 
more in Palestine than the blessings conferred on this honored family it 
was time, effort, and money well spent. But it has done vastly more. There 
are many similar Christian homes in Palestine, each home a silent and most 
potent missionary for the Christ born in Bethlehem but destined to set 
free the world. However, there are 800,000 Syrians in the Holy Land and 
Moslemism has its benighting grip upon them. They know nothing else. 
But of all people we met the Syrians present the finest soil for the sowing 
of the gospel seed. They are a noble and stalwart people and have great 
inherent qualities. All they need is Christianity. Even all the trees have 
perished since Islam reigned in Palestine. The ancient terraces have washed 
from the fruitful mountain side and the people themselves have partaken 
far more than the soil of the blighting effect of Mohammed, the touch of 



133 



CHAPTER XII. 

Gethsemane — Olivet — Jerusalem to Jericho. 




The Big Tree in Gethsemane. 

"His sweat like drops of blood ran down,. 
In agony He prayed." 



137 



CHAPTER XII. 

Gethsemane — Olivet — Jerusalem to Jericho. 

Leaving the city by the Damascus Gate and circling eastward we soon 
pass the palatial German Hospice built supposedly for the summer home 
of the Kron Prince, but built as an advance preparation for German occupa- 
tion of Palestine and containing wireless apparatus and a powerful search- 
light. It was interiorly decorated with German art ideals and the Christ 
was represented as the Kaiser, and St. Paul wore a big waxed German 
moustache. It stands out today as the finest building in or about the city. 
It is the irony of history that it is now occupied by Sir Samuel, the Governor- 
General, and above it flies the Union Jack. Soon we enter the road leading 
east from Stephen's Gate down across the Kidron vale and just on the 
farther incline we come to the Church of the Franciscans and adjoining it- 
and cared for by its Fathers, the beautiful little three-quarter acre Garden: 
of Gethsemane. It is surrounded by a modern wall and iron paling fence. 
Concrete walkways cross and recross it, between which are varieties of 
foliage beautiful and odorous. But the chief objects of interest are eight 
age-old olive trees, all similar to that appearing in the accompanying picture, 
which is the reputed senior of them all and the identical tree under which 
prayed the Master for the passing of the cup while the cold ground below 
caught the vermillion drops that exuded from His pores, pressed out by 
such mental anguish as never mere mortal felt. The olive lives to a ripe 
old age and these have been well cared for within the memory of man, but 
two thousands years and more, for they were supposed to be big trees then, 
is a long time. Its traditional age is doubtful and so is the exact spot here 
represented as the garden. It is rather too near the roadside and the gate. 
The account says that He went still farther away, perhaps up the slopes of 
Olivet, and fell on His face and prayed. However, this site dates back to 
the fourth century. At any rate Gethsemane is hereabout and His pleading 
accents might have been audible from the location of this tree. Here broke 
His heart as the pressure of the lost world bore down upon it. Some eminent 
medical authorities are of the decided opinion that here the pericardium 
was ruptured and that slow leakage began which finally hastened His death 
in advance of the thieves, the final moment of which death called out such 
an agonizing shriek of pain. The blood had already coagulated. It is re- 



139 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



called that theie came out both water and blood from His pierced side. 
Never man suffered as did Jesus. Mental anguish inexpressible would have 
killed Him; the agonies of the cross likewise would have ended in death, 
but the two combined lifts His vicarious sacrifice to a pinnacle far to itself 
in appealing significance and pathos. One's capacity to suffer is pro- 
portionate to his degree of refinement. In Him the refinement of God was 
blended with the inherent refinement of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Heme 
He could and did suffer as none other ever did. It was all for us. 

"Into the woods my Master went, 

Clean for-spent, for-spent; 

Into the woods my Master came, 

For-spent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Him, 

The little gray leaves were kind to Him, 

The thorn tree had a mind to Him, 

When into the woods He came. 

"Out of the woods my Master went, 

And He was well content; 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame. 

When death and shame would woo Him last, 

From under the trees they drew Him last, 

'Twas on a tree they slew Him last 

When out of the woods He came." 

(Sidney Lanier.) 

Across the road from the garden are shown ycu the tombs of both Joseph 
and Mary. Over the spot is a church built by Queen Millicent in 1161, and 
here she is buried. A flight of forty-seven steps descends to the chapel. 

Mount Olivet, so called from the large groves of olive trees that once 
covered it, is the highest point round about Jerusalem, being 2,680 feet 
above the sea level and 130 above Mount Zion, the most elevated spot in 
the city proper. It is due east and 300 feet above Gethsemane, and also 
due east of the Golden Gate and therefore of the Temple Area. Much his- 
tory has transpired here. Ezekiel's vision occurred here and across it fled 
David from his ?on, Absalom. Solomon built the high places for his many 

140 



Mt. Olivet- 

"While they beheld He 
their sight." 



-Gethsemane in Background. 

was taken up, and a cloud recieved Him out of 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



wives to worship their gods here, and here the Jews, having returned from 
captivity, celebrated the Feast of the Tabernacles. Jesus often visited i". 
He was descending its slopes when the multitude met Him waving palms 
and strewing their garments in His way and crying "Hosanna." Here He 
predicted the city's overthrow, and here He retired after His last Passover. 
The Mohammedans claim its apex as the place of the Ascension and have 
a mosque to commemorate that event. In a small octagonal pavilion is a 
stone in a frame with a small indenture in it about the size of a baby s 
foot. It purports to be Christ's last footprint on earth. However, further 
over toward Bethany is the more exact place of His ascension. This mosque 
has a magnificent view from its minaret which tourists may ascend. The 
city spreads out in finest panorama and Neby Samwil, Gibea, Bethlehem 
and the Frank Mountain, and to our rear the mountains of Moab, from 
which Moses viewed the landscape o'er and where he disappeared. Next to 
you sleeping in its mountain cradle is the Dead Sea and far north from it 
extends the Ghor, or Jordan valley, a row of green trees like an emerald 
ribbon marking its winding course. To the north of this point is the 
Russian church with a still higher tower in which is a spiral staircase of 
214 steps. The view from a platform at the top of this tower is still better 
than that just mentioned. In the yard of this church is a large stone said 
to have been intended for Solomon's Temple but discarded because of a 
flaw. Nearby in a small chapel is a cubical stone represented to be that 
from which Christ mounted the ass. To the south is the Church of the 
Pater Noster, or where Christ gave the Lord's Prayer, and the prayer is 
seen on tablets around a court written in 35 languages. A beautiful marble 
tomb of the French princess who erected the church is shown you. 

On the southeastern slope of Olivet is Bethany, a straggling town of a 
few hundred people, chiefly Mohammedans. Once it was the home of three 
intimate friends of the Master and where the "prophet's chamber" was al- 
ways ready for His occupancy. This devoted home was a green oasis of 
refreshment in the Sahara of recrimination and persecution. Here was al- 
ways quiet and love. Lazarus the noble friend, Martha the cumbered 
servant who served much for love's sake, Mary the meditative who sat at 
His feet feasting on the joys of His companionship and the golden truths 
He announced — these three dwelt in Bethany, the Place of Dates. One 
day Lazarus was stricken and died. Jesus hastened to the sorrowful hom> J 
and with the fiat of a God called back the escaped soul to the decayin<; 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



corpse, thereby rendering a great boon to the sisters but imposing a tre- 
mendous loss upon Lazarus, Jesus wept. He was grieving for Lazarus' 
sake. Four days gone had he entered into his glorious inheritance and 
back from its joys to this old sad earth he was calling him again. Tradition 
says that he was thirty years old when he died and thirty more he lived 
after being resurrected. The ruins of their residence are shown you and 
a stone cave or tomb in the side of the hill which might have been the tomb 
of the miracle. It was near the home and fulfills all necessary conditions. 

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho winds past Bethany and mounting 
our Ford cars we start the tortuous descent. Jerusalem is 3,842 feet above 
the Dead Sea. The distance is 18 miles as the crow flies or about 25 as 
the road winds. Think of it. More than 200 feet descent per mile. Never 
was roadway built over rougher country and there is no finer engineering 
than this. It was built for the special benefit of the Kaiser to pass over 
in 1898, one lone benefit of his pompous visit. It is a fine grade of macadam 
and apart from the heat and the great number of Bedouin camel trains ic 
was a very fine drive. I believe that it is possible to coast from Olivet to 
Jericho and most of the time using the brakes. Two miles out we passed 
by the Apostles' Fountain, so named because they often drank there, called 
also the "Sunny Fountin." Half way down we passed the Khan of the 
Good Samaritan. It is near the location of the ancient one of the Parable, 
a mass of ruins on a hilltop being pointed out. But this one is like the 
other and is near enough to be identical for all practical purposes. It is 
a walled enclosure 100 feet square with chambers for sleeping and for 
storage ranging around an open court where slept the animals in safety 
after the big gate was locked. After passing down this road we can ap- 
preciate fully the conditions of the parable. A thousand jagged gorges 
seam this mountain region and a thousand good hiding places for robbers 
were at hand everywhere. In fact we met them in ones, twos, and larger 
numbers, riding good Arabian steeds, walking with caravan trains, or 
watching the sheep grazing on the rough hillsides. Soldiers paraded up 
and down the road constantly and guaranteed safety from their treachery. 
We had frequent trouble in meeting the camels in large numbers heavily 
laden with grain from the plains of Moab. They would not know how 
to get out of the narrow road and one fine fellow fell across a ditch and 
could not rise until relieved of his load. This is Quarantana, the country 
of the wilderness temptation. North and south is seen nought but a series 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



of barren limestone mountains glistening in the torrid sunlight separate- 1 
by mighty chasms and deep precipices. There can be no more fitting spot 
on earth for a Devil to dwell. It surely is God-forsaken. It is a sad and 
seamy solitude, save for Marsaba. This monastery stands high up and white 
against the mountainside overhanging the deep ravine which was the Brook 
Cherith by which Elijah dwelt and where he was fed by the ravens; whether 
black birds or black Bedouins is immaterial. They were God's messengers 
to a needy servant who could find no spot in the forsaken wilds where Gocl 
was not. We were all thousands of miles from home and friends, yet the 
thoughtfulness of God in this incident comforted our hearts with the as- 
surance of His constant care. This road is the main highway from all the 
country beyond the Jordan and was such in the time of Christ. Just above 
the ford of the river are the pillars of a stone bridge built by the Romans. 
Today it is but a weak lattice-work structure resting on wooden piles 
and up until English occupation a toll bridge. It will soon be supplanted 
by a modern steel structure of beauty and permanence. Such will be in 
keeping with this modern roadway and the spirit of British enterprise 
evidenced in all her dependencies. As we descend we pass a rough path- 
way leading off to the right to the Neby Musa, or the traditional Moslem 
tomb of Moses. Pilgrims in large nmbers make this point every Easter 
time on their way to the Jordan bathing place mentioned later. The 
Scriptures affirm that no man knows Moses' burial place. From Mount 
Pisgah some fifteen miles east beyond the Dead Sea he was permitted to 
behold in lucid and perhaps magnified vision all the Land of Promise which 
denied to him became the portion of the vast multitude whose wide encamp- 
ment lay in the plain below. But despite this clear assertion of Scripture 
the Mohammedans know the place and have allowed him to cross over 
Jordan despite the divine interdiction. This tomb is a place of prayer as 
the Moslems accept Moses as a great and true prophet and revere his 
memory almost as much as Christians or Jews. 

Our road winds through a gorge and comes out on a high ridge that 
offers a full and uninterrupted view of the Jordan valley for some miles up 
and the Dead Sea, or the upper part of it. To our left a few miles north is 
a green spot speckled with white. It is Jericho whose ancient walls stood 
directly in Israel's pathway of conquest. However, between it and the 
Jordan ford lay the ancient Gilgal, modern Tel Jeljul. Here Israel first 
pitched camp west of the Jordan and set up twelve stones taken from its 



145 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



bed. Here the manna ceased and the first Passover in Canaan was celebrated 
as well as the rite of circumcision. Here the camp abode for some time 
and one night Joshua on a reconnoitering tour beheld "a man over against 
him with a drawn sword in his hand." It was God's angel. Later as- 
sembled there the conventions of the people under Samuel and Saul, the 
latter being made king here, and here the whole tribe of Judah met King 
David on his return from exile after Absalom's untimely death. No more 
beautiful incident in Scripture is recorded than this wholehearted convoy 
of David's tribesmen peopling the plains near the Jordan ford to welcome 
home their beloved king. Gilgal filled a large place in those days. Today 
even the very site is problematic and at best only a pile of debris marks its 
reputed location. 

A few moments' drive from Gilgal brings us to Jericho. The city today 
is a row of plain rock huts separated by walls of the same material. It 
contains about two thousand people and a more degenerate and wretched 
lot we met nowhere than here. It was a contrast of present squalor with past 
magnificence. There was a main street with stalls for stores selling melons, 
tropical fruit, and simple household articles. We purchased a native banana. 
It was small but sweet. An uninviting hotel stood on a corner of the lane 
and a Greek church dating back to the 15th century marked the home of 
Zaccheus, it is claimed. There are three Jerichoes in history. First that 
destroyed by Joshua; the second, that of Herod and Cleopatra; third, that 
miserable village of today. The sites are also different. Joshua's Jerichj 
was adjacent to the Fountain of Elisha, Ain-es-Sultan. We saw results 
of excavations recently conducted by Dr. Ernest Sellin. We stood on top 
of a mound fifty feet high and looked down on ancient walls thousands of 
years old. He found numerous ruined houses, an ancient citadel, containing 
three stories and 17 rooms. In three of the rooms the antique stoves 
were still intact and broken household articles, some of them highly deco- 
rated. He reclaimed 30 jugs, disposition of their contents being omitted in 
the account. Some of them were beautifully embellished. Numerous kitchen 
articles, and an elegant stone statue also were recovered. It confirms the 
Scripture account of Joshua VI. The destruction was complete, only the 
vessels of gold, silver, brass, nd iron were reserved for the treasury of 
the Lord. Rahab and her kindred were spared according to the pledge of 
the three spies whom she prudently housed. Nothing is more majestic than 
this silent circuit of the doomed city six days running and the seventh 

146 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



seven times around ending with a terrific shout of faith claiming the vic- 
tory in anticipation, which claim was amply justified in the results attained. 
Later Joshua standing perhaps on an adjacent hill pronounced his curse 
upon the city, pointing to its charred ruins with index finger of imprecation 
and exclaiming, "Cursed be the man that riseth up and buildeth this city 
Jerfichoi; he shall lay the foundation in his firstborn, and in his youngest 
son shall he set up the gates of it." Josh. 6:26. Five hundred years later, 
or 915 B. C., "did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho. He laid the foundation 
thereof in Abiram, his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest 
son, Segub, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua, 
the son of Nun." I Kings 16:34. Yet it was rebuilt and became a school 
of the prophets, but on another site. Herod yet again rebuilt the city, 
strengthening and adorning it after it was redeemed from Cleopatra, on 
whom it had been bestowed by the infatuated Anthony. Here Herod re- 
sided in winter. He built a fortress, lordly palaces, and a great circus 
hippodrome in which he caused later the nobles of the land to be im- 
prisoned under death sentence, which sentence his own awful death pro- 
vented from being executed. This was on still another site. Christ visited 
Jericho several times and lodged with Zaccheus and healed Bartimeus. Here 
lived many of the priests and Levites who went up to Jerusalem in their 
regular courses of temple service. One of each passed the wounded brother 
in merciless indifference to his appeals but thank heaven, "a certain 
Samaritan came that way," himself and his humane conduct so symbolic 
of the Great Samaritan in His healing and reclaiming attitude to a bruised 
and wounded world without regard to rank, race, religion, or color. Jericho 
is one-fourth mile below sea level, the deepest of any city on earth. It has 
a super-tropical climate. It was 110 degrees in the shade when we were 
there, so hot that our Fords would run but a short time before overheating. 
Right glad were we to escape and reach again our pleasant rooms at the 
Grand New Hotel at Jerusalem. Jericho is the gift of Elisha's Fountain, 
so named because of its water being cleansed by him with a treatment of 
salt. It bursts out from the hillside in a stream large enough to turn a 
small mill. A large concrete reservoir collects the water. In one apartment 
natives were bathing in the nude and in brazen indifference to our presence. 
The upper apartment was clean and the water cool and refreshing. Modern 
stone aqueducts convey its supplies down to the city a half mile away and 
into gardens rich in palm trees, oranges, lemons, bananas, figs, grapes, and 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



vines and flowers. This garden is but a sample of what the Jordan valley 
once was and what it may again become under the wizardry of modern irriga- 
tion. Everything shall live whither the river cometh. The greatest need of 
Palestine is water. Then it shall blossom as the rose. Some day ere long it 
shall be so. It is the program of England and of Zionism should it prevail. 



148 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Jordan— The Dead Sea 



The Jcrdan — Supposed Site of Christ's Baptism. 

"The Jordan valley is the lowest depression on earth and the earth's 
deepest ditch." 



151 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Jordan— The Dead Sea. 



The Jordan River is the most celebrated stream in the wide world. This 
is not because of its size, for it is less than 200 miles long, including its 
windings, but little more than 100 feet wide normally near its mouth, and 
from six to ten feet deep. It surpasses in interest the Nile itself, which 
made Egypt, the Hudson, the Mississippi, the Amazon and the Danube. Its 
interest is both historic and symbolic. It marks the ending of Israel's 
wanderings as a horde and the beginning of their history as an organized 
nation, the induction of the Savior of men into His priestly office, and the 
inauguration of His kingdom on earth. It is sacred to Jew, Moslem, and 
Christian. It is mentioned 180 times in the Old Testament and 15 times 
in the New. The earliest is in Gen. 13:10, where Lot is said to have "lifted 
up his eyes and beheld all the plain of the Jordan that it was well watered 
everywhere even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt" from 
which he and Abraham had just come. Hence the comparison. The valley 
at that time must have been exceedingly fertile and productive, containing 
several flourishing cities, including Sodom and Gomorrah, where now is the 
Dead Sea. It was later crossed by the Children of Israel under Joshua to 
begin the conquest of the land. Many others crossed it here and there, in- 
cluding David in his flight from Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion and 
his return after his sad death. Here a ferry-boat was used, the only mention 
of such in Scripture. Naaman dipped in its waters and was healed of his 
leprosy. Elijah had previously crossed it, its waters dividing the second 
time miraculously. These are but a few of the many Old Testament 
references. 

In the New Testament the chief incidents are the baptizing of the multi- 
tudes by John, including that of Jesus. 

It rises in the Anti-Lebanon mountains at the base of Mt. Hermon 1,700 
feet above sea level and empties into the Dead Sea 100 miles straight due 
south 1,300 feet below sea level, falling threfore 30 feet per mile. One is 
not surprised to find that Lieutenant Lynch in 1848 discovered 27 rapids 
plus several minor ones and that one of his boats was wrecked. It originates 
in four principal springs and 28 miles away enters into the waters of Merom, 
now Lake Huleh, a beautiful little triangular lake at sea level. Thence 12 



153 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



miles later it enters and passes through the Sea of Galilee, 682 feet below 
sea level, its waters entering turbid and leaving it as clear as crystal. Thence 
for 60 miles direct but 180 miles in reality it plunges to the Dead Sea, its 
winding course overcoming its excessive fall. Opposite Jericho are the 
Fords of the Jordan, and tradition identifies this as the place of Christ's 
baptism. Here every Easter in commemoration of that event great con- 
gregations of Pilgrims, mostly from Russia, assemble and dip in its muddy 
waters. Old and young, rich and poor, plunge promiscuously into its current, 
which here flows three miles per hour. It must indeed present a most 
picturesque sight; hundreds of candidates in snow white garments — their 
future burial robes — all kneeling on the banks while a patriarchal priest 
in a boat immerses a cross three times with much ceiemony. Then a nude 
native dives from the boat and at this signal the multitude move quickly 
into the stream, immerse themselves, and retire for others to take their 
places. Sometimes it is very cold and the ceremony is attended with suf- 
fering and after effects. Arroc, a vile native intoxicant, is sold and often 
fights occur and occasionally deaths. 

The Jordan Valley is the lowest depression in the earth, the earth's 
deepest ditch. The whole Ghor from Huleh to the southern end of the Dead 
Sea is a geological split supposedly occurring somewhere near the time of 
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It has the greatest fall of any 
stream in the world, that is from its source to its entrance to the Dead Sea, 
3,000 feet in 100 straight miles, or 30 feet average per mile. The Sacra- 
mento river in California is a close second. This great fall and the abundance 
and dependability of the current with a superabundance in winter and early 
spring at the "swellings of the Jordan," which could be impounded, suggest 
great possibilities for electric and irrigation developments. In fact the 
English government has already let concessions for utilization of the basins 
of the Jordan and tributaries for generation of 400,000 horse power, re- 
liably estimated — an equivalent of 3,500,000 tons of coal. The lessor is Pinhas 
Rutenberg, a well known hydraulic engineer, and the lease runs for 70 years. 
He has preempted the ground, has "pulled off" a gigantic financial coup, 
both feasible and possible. In fact wealthy Jews everywhere eagerly seized 
the offerings of stock bearing a guarantee by the government of 8%. But 
more of this later. The Jordan has two plains, or beds, one the wide valley, 
the other a deeper and more narrow one within. The river overflows into 
this latter bed during the spring freshet. At such a time the Israelites 

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A. PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



crossed it. Its banks are covered with sycamore, ilex, willows, reeds and 
rushes, a dense half tropical jungle. It was once the home of dangerous 
lions, leopards and other wild beasts, but there are none now. Wandering 
and treacherous gangs of Bedouins people the whole valley. At the ford 
we came on a rude thatched hut, double story, owned by a Syrian with a 
Greek wife. A boat was rented for a row on the stream; coffee made over 
a "fire of coals" was served, with roasted fresh water clams seasoned with 
Dead Sea salt. The large head of a catfish caught on the "trot line" in 
the stream hung on a nail along side the dried hind feet of a Jordan hare 
entrapped in the rushes on the bank. We saw no birds. We were there in 
August. But others have mentioned many varieties of birds up and down 
the valley. There are the dove, raven, owl, stork, heron, wild goose, snipe, 
quail, grouse, hoopoo, king fisher, bulbul, thrush, and every kind of bird of 
prey. It has been said that nearly every variety of bird in Europe or 
America is found somewhere on the banks of the Jordan, and also, owing 
to the various elevations, all varieties of vegetation from that of the moun- 
tains of Norway to the torrid belt of Africa. 

The Jordan has three distinctions. First, it has the world's greatest fall; 
second, it is the world's deepest ditch, both discussed above; third, its bed 
has changed less during the centuries than perhaps any other; fourth, it dis- 
charges its waters into a lake without outlet. Evaporation equals the intake, 
owing to the extreme heat and the basin-like shape of the sea. 

This Dead Sea remains for discussion. In Scripture it is called the East 
Sea, Sea of Sodom, Sea of the Desert, and Salt Sea. Josephus and the 
classical writers refer to it as the Sea of Asphaltites, because of the ex- 
cessive abundance of asphalt in its region. The Arabs call it Bahr-Lut, 
the Sea of Lot. In April-May, 1848, Lieutenant Lynch of the American Ex- 
pedition made exhaustive exploration of the whole valley including the Dead 
Sea, to which he gave very careful examination. To him we are greatly in- 
debted. He describes the water as a greenish-blue, often rippled and some- 
times powerfully stirred by storms, and owing to its density the waves struck 
with terrific force against the sides of the boats. It is nearly one-fourth 
mineral, five per cent being salt, with much magnesia, lime, and soda. Once 
it was a vast salt plain stretching from the Gulf of Akabah, the eastern 
arm of the Red Sea, to Mt. Hermon. Through it ran the Jordan at an 
elevation above the present. The Sea was then a smaller lake about the 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



size of Galilee. It was salt and surrounded with deposits of bitumin (pitch) 
which filled basins or "slime pits" into which the kings of Sodom and 
Gomorrah fell in the war with Amraphel king of Shinar and his three con- 
federates. Gen. 14. It was a "well watered" plain and several cities with 
kings flourished there. Lot chose it for his portion, selfishly selecting the 
best and leaving his uncle Abraham, his foster parent and benefactor, to 
eke out his livelihood in the hills of the south and west. The sea is 9 miles 
east and west and 40 north and south. In depth it varies from 13 feet to 
1,300, the greater depth being the location of the supposed ancient lake or 
sea. Through its whole length there is a gorge corresponding to the present 
Jordan valley. Geologic breaks to the north and to the south of the sea 
indicate some mighty convulsion. It is generally accepted that the Scriptural 
account of the destruction of the "cities of the plain" is correct. The moun- 
tains all around it are volcanic in origin and especially the extinct crater 
of Usdum on the southwestern border of the sea. It is easy to surmise that 
the "fire and brimstone" was the raining of volcanic lava igniting the pitch 
deposits and quickly consuming everything inflammable. It was none the 
less a visitation of divine retribution. The whole valley likewise sank down 
as it is today. Lot only escaped through angelic intervention owing to the 
pleadings of Abraham. There sleep today the charred remains of ancient; 
cities whose unmentionable degradation becomes the synonym for excessive 
depravity to all peoples. Their tombs lead down to hell and the saline waves 
sing their sad and lonely dirge above them, and sometimes when the lake 
is lashed by the storm one may imagine he hears the shrieks of the long 
lost inhabitants; inhabitants who dared the wrath of a Holy God and who 
mixed the bitter ingredients of their own cup, mixed it and then drank it, 
even to its awful dregs. What a monument to the fact that Divine Mercy 
would spare, but Divine Justice will avenge, the latter as essential to the 
Divine economy as the former. Compare the description in Gen. 13:10 de 
scribing it as it was prior to the catastrophe, and that of Deut. 29:23 for 
its after appearance. The former, "And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld 

all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere 

even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto 
Zoar." The latter, "And the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and 
burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, 
like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the 
Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath." Here are mentioned the 



156 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



names of the other two cities destroyed. "How astounding," says Rev. 
Geo. Fisk in his Memoirs of the Holy Land, "will be the blast of the arch- 
angel's trumpet, when clanging amidst those bleak and barren rocks and 

borne like a spell over the surface of those stagnant waters and 

when is laid bare the gloomy secret at which we surmise and shudder." 

The name "Dead Sea" is right, for not a microbe lives within it and 
around it no semblance of vegetation. White sand beaches sparkle with 
salt encrustations. Trunks of trees brought down by the Jordan "swellings" 
lie stretched along its shores like the whitened skeleton of some pre- 
historic mastodon. Fish brought down from the Jordan and the few streams 
entering the sea from the east are immediately killed and pickled per- 
manently in its brine and float about or lie against the beach. In the vicinity 
grows the Sodom's apple, or "Dead Sea fruit that turns to ashes on the lips." 
It is the Osher of the Arabs. It grows to considerable size and has a gray 
cork-like bark with long oval leaves. The fruit resembles a large yellow 
apple, beautiful to behold, soft to the touch, but when pressed it explodes 
with a puff, leaving only the peel and the silky core. It is found also in 
Nubia, Arabia, and Persia, contrary to general opinion. It is also untrue 
that birds flying across the sea fall dead upon its surface. Ducks float upon 
it and wild geese rest there in their flight. Birds are found floating dead, 
but they perish from exhaustion. 

One cannot sink in its waters and the sensation of a Dead Sea bath is 
as enjoyable as novel. One floats about like a cork lying listless on its 
bosom, or standing upright, or swimming about with peculiar ease and 
pleasure. One should not remain too long and a speedy rub down in fresh 
water is necessary. Bathers often hasten to the Jordan for that purpose. 
You emerge with an imaginary feeling that you had taken a dip in a 
sorghum vat. Some tents of Bedouins were pitched on the shore and their 
women made vehement protests against our bath, judging from the volume 
of jabbering and gesticulation. We wore our bath suits and helmets. 

We did not pay our respects to Mrs. Lot as she was too far to the 
southwest. We are told that "pillars," or piles of salt are common her^ 
and one is pointed out as Lot's wife, but though we accept the account of 
Genesis, we can hardly believe that so small a piece of salt would survive 
the erosions of four thousand years and stand there until this day unless 
miraculously preserved, which no one accepts. Doubtless her only monu- 



157 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



ment is a single reference of the Master calling her sad fate to our re- 
membrance. Let us learn from her doom that in this modern age, as in 
all ages, any one who looks back or even hesitates will be "salted down" 
and left behind in the quick procession. Of course she reminds us of the 
penalty of disobedience and the futility of gambling with the chances against 
God's commands. Treatment of the electric and irrigative possibilities of 
the Jordan valley, including a gigantic development staggering in its big- 
ness, will be reserved for future discussion. 

We have treated at length the historic significance of the Jordan and 
also its physical characteristics. It remains for us to close this chapter 
with a few words relative to its striking symbolism. 

First, rising in the heights and plunging downward into the Sea of 
Galilee the Jordan is a symbol of the buoyancy, vivacity, and promise of 
youth. Its meandering of 180 miles in sixty represents the undecided, in- 
determinate vacillations cf many a young man who never finds himself or 
his life work until too late. The future uses of the waters of the sea, 
treated in a later chapter, making the desert valley cf the Jordan to blossom 
again as of yore, is a picture of what his life might become. But alas, it 
plunges into the Dead Sea of defeat and oblivion. 

Second, the Sea of Galilee is a perfect picture of life, of fertility and 
refreshment and blessing. The Dead Sea is the symbol of death, barren- 
ness, and cursing. The same water flows into each. The one entertains it 
for a little while and then passes it on to make its contribution as it can 
to the lower Jordan. The other accepts it and hoards it with never a single 
drop given out save that under the compulsion of the sun's tropic rays. 
What an impressive lesson of life! There are those rich souls whose genial 
personalities receive much from nature and from grace and gladly pass it 
on to bless and cheer and biighten the vales of human life; who like the 
Master go about doing good, asking not, "What can I get?" but "What may 
I give?" These are the rich, the abundant lives fat and flourishing and 
growing. They live by the side of the road where go by the races of men. 
Their lives are a perpetual benediction while upon earth and go marching 
on with compound interest after the bright flowers bloom above their sleep- 
ing dust. In contrast there are those who, like the spider, sit within the 
center of their webs with every stran a sensitive feeler outward asking, 
"What shall I have for dinner?" "What is there in it for me?"; souls that 



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"rot inwardly and foul contagion spread"; exaggerated egoes filling their 
own little words; non-progressives; non-contributors to society's weal; tight- 
wads; Old Scrooges, and Silas Marners without their saving qualities. They 
die and are buried and lift up their eyes in hell, being in torment, like 
Dives, for this is the first intimation we have that he ever "lifted up his 
eyes," or that he had ever seen Lazarus except as a community pest that 
had to be endured. Or like Lot, who viewed the world as he viewed the 
rich Jordan plain, as a field for growing vast flocks of fat sheep and of 
cattle in abundance, instead of a field for investment in human ilfe and its 
imperishable wealth. 

"The bread that bringeth strength I want to give, 
The water pure that bids the thirsty live: 
I want to help the fainting day by day; 
I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

I want to give the oil of joy for tears, 

The faith to conquer crowding doubts and fears. 

Beauty for ashes may I give alway: 

I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

I want to give good measure running o'er, 
And into angry hearts I want to pour 
The answer soft that turneth wrath away; 
I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

I want to give to others hope and faith, 
I want to do all that the Master saith; 
I want to live aright from day to day; 
I'm sure I shall not pass again this way. 

Lastly the Jordan is an emblem of separation. It was the barrier be- 
tween wandering Israel and their promised possession, "a land of hills and 
valleys; and drinketh water of the rain of heaven; a land which the Lord 
thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord are always upon it from the be- 
ginning of the year even unto the end of the year." Deut. 11:11-12. So to 
us it emblemizes death, that dark stream that separates the scenes of our 
earthly migrations from those of our heavenly inheritance — a land of hills 
and valleys of versatile beauty and happiness, where no night comes, for 
the sun shall never go down; and in it a New Jerusalem where there is no 
Temple save God and the Lamb, and where all the kings of the earth bring 



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their glory into it, and the gates stand ajar that all whose names are written 
in the Lamb's book of life may go in and out at will in His perpetual and 
joyful service. The descriptions of it as a "swelling flood," as a 
"rolling Jordan," as "a cold river" are overdrawn. We shall not find it so 
when we seek to cross, and the same hand that parted its waves for the 
tribes of Israel, and later for the old prophet Elijah, will part them for us 
if we belong to Him. 

"Could we but stand where Moses stood 

And view the landscape o'er, 
Not Jordan's wave nor death's cold flood 

Should fright us from the shore." 



161 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Bethlehem — Solomon's Pools — Hebron. 




Bethlehem Today. 

"Kwown and loved by all men, women, and especially children every- 
where." 



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CHAPTER XIV. 

Bethlehem — Solomon's Pools — Hebron. 

Bethlehem — the most famous town on earth — famous far in excess of its 
size, sits on a hill six miles south of Jerusalem and almost in sight of it. 
We leave by the Jaffa Gate, pass down the Hinnom valley around by the 
scarp of old Mt. Zion high above our heads. To the near left is the diminutive 
tree on which Iscariot hanged himself. It is but a "sapling" and the limbs 
are low and one wonders how the event could have happened. Also the age 
of this famous tree complicates the fabulous claim. Ascending the southern 
slope we cross the elevated plateau, or "Valley of Rephaim," or giants, 
where David twice defeated the Philistines and pursued them from Gibeon 
to Gazeh. Soon we are shown the Well of the Magi. It is said that here 
the Wise Men saw the star reflected in the bottom of the well. It will be 
recalled that it had temporarily disappeared as they went into Jerusalem 
and being directed of the chief priests and scribes that the birth of the 
King should occur in Bethlehem, they started in that direction. On a hill 
to the left is the Greek Convent of Elijah, or Mar-Elyas. It is claimed that 
Elijah tarried here in his flight from the infuriated Jezebel. A depression 
in a big rock by the roadside is where he slept. However, the convent takss 
its name from one Bishop Elias and has no remote connection with the 
prophet and is hardly worth the reference. 

The view of Bethlehem from this elevation is impressive. Bethlehem 
known and loved by all men, women, and especially children everywhere; 
the one city that cannot be hid, famed in song and story, for here was born 
long years ago "the Savior which is Christ the Lord." His cradle was but 
a manger, His companions but the simple kine, His adorers but a few 
shepherds of the hills, yet out of that cave has come a king that "has lifted the 
gates of empires from their hinges and turned back the stream of centuries." 
and is destined to rule the world. Proceeding southward we reach the Tomb 
of Rachel. It is a double-compartment concrete building twenty by forty 
feet in dimension. The front room is but the vestibule to the rear where 
is the Sarcophagus under which is the reputed grave of Rachel. It is prob- 
ably authentic. It was observed in an earlier chapter that tombs of Biblical 
characters had been preserved by Jew and Moslem and Christian. This is 
the grave of a Jewess, the building was erected by Moslems, and it is like- 



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wise respected by Christians. There is no more touching episode than 
Rachel's death and its effect on Jacob. Every one recalls that she was his 
favorite and much beloved wife. They were journeying south from Bethel 
and at this spot Benjamin was born and Rachel died while "there was but 
a little way to come to Ephrath and was buried in the way to Ephrath .... 
and Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave 
unto this day." Gen. 35:16-20. Many long years afterwards Jacob, an old 
and bent man, leaning upon his staff, goes back, back to his first love and 
her sad death and he repeats in tenderest tones the story of his bereave- 
ment. "And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the 
land of Canaan in the way, when there was yet but a little way to come to. 
Ephrath; and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is 
Bethlehem." Gen. 47:7. As we entered this tomb we saw the walls dis- 
figured with all kinds of scribblings by ignorant visitors. The outer com- 
partment was filled with Jewish pilgrims whom we had formerly seen at 
the Wailing Place. They were weeping again, presumably out of sympathy 
for Jacob; for what other reason we could not surmise. In the tomb compart- 
ment venders were selling native drinks, cakes resembling ginger cakes, 
and slices of melon. 

Bethlehem (Beit-Lahm) means House of Bread, and such it has become. 
For from this village has gone the Bread of Life, the Manna from heaven 
that not alone satisfies the hunger of the world's heart but feeds and 
nourishes and develops the spiritual forces of all men in all ages and ail 
places. The town is situated on a hill with well cultivated terraces of vines 
and fig trees, and with fertile corn and wheat fields surrounding. Until 
recently little farming occurred and the land was used for grazing. Bedouins 
who people the Wilderness of Engedi to the south and east confiscated every- 
thing in sight. Hence the people subsisted by manufacturing souvenirs, such 
as bracelets, rosaries, beads, paper knives, paper weights, cigar holders, 
match boxes, etc. The material used is olive wood, reputed to come from 
Gethsemane which is false, mother of pearl, and Dead Sea stone. The shops 
supply most of the stores in Jerusalem. The workmen are very adept. They 
sit on the floor or ground and wield the tools with skill. One of the most 
interesting sights was that of artisans turning a small lathe with one hand 
and holding the article lathed with the toes. A bow resembling those of 
our boyhood had the cord wrapped around the lathe wheel and by pulling 
it back and forth a rapid revolving was produced. We saw here another 



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use of a similar bow, though much longer. The wool was carded by snapping 
it with the bowstring. In fact we saw this at several points. As soon as 
we entered the market place we were beset by determined and persistent 
venders of trinkets, post cards, etc. Two of them almost came to blows 
over the purchase of a trifle. 

The little city contains 2,000 houses and 8,000 people. They were more 
civil and cleanly than any we saw. The women were more attractive. It 
is said that they are a mixture from the days of the Crusaders, which per- 
haps applies to a large portion of the population. The Bethlehem women 
love to deck themselves in embroidered jackets of brightest hues and rich 
colored veils. They visit each other much and sit on the floor, or rather 0:1 
fancy figured rugs, drinking the strong oriental coffee from tiny cups and 
smoking the tchibouk. Quite a number of wealthy Jews live here, having: 
come from various parts of the world in order to die on sacred soil and there 
be buried. See one such building in the foreground of the picture. Bethlehem 
is the most Christian town in Palestine. Once Moslems were in the majority 
and they rebelled against Ibrahim Pasha in 1834 and were almost ex- 
terminated by him and the Moslem Quarter destroyed. 

As above stated, here Rachel died, and the beautiful Ruth gleaned after 
the reapers her handfuls of wheat, and incidentally gleaned a fine old 
bachelor for a good husband. Here David, Ruth's grandson, was anointed 
king while in the nearby fields he tended his father's flocks and composed 
many of the beautiful Psalms, including perhaps the noble Twenty-Third, 
while the strains from his harp trembled on the adjacent hillsides, which 
same hillsides and fields later caught up the midnight song of angels sent 
to announce the gladdest news the world ever received. "Glory to God in 
the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men; for unto you is born 
this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." It 
should be mentioned that four of David's nephews, Joab, Abishai, Asahel, 
sons of his sister, Zeruiah, and Amasa, son of the other sister, Abigail, 
attained considerable celebrity as brave men. Asahel was "light of foot 
as a wild roe." 

The city today centers its interest in the Church of the Nativity. It is 
the oldest existent Christian church, being built by Helena A. D. 330. It 
is 90 by 100 feet and contains a large inner chapel with two rows of mono- 
lithic columns with fine Corinthian decorations. There are 24 columns in 



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each row. The crests of the Crusader Knights who visited the church in 
the 12th century are carved on these columns. Some of them are supposed 
to have been relics of Solomon's Temple. It is more probable that they 
came from Solomon's elegant porch in Herod's Temple. The walls were 
once adorned with fine paintings and mosaics but the corrosions of the 
centuries have defaced them. The wooden roof is decayed. The grottos 
of the Nativity and the Manger attract chief attention. The former is a 
rock hewn chapel 10 by 12 by 33 feet, at the end of which in a grotto is 
the place where was first heard the "baby's low cry." A large brass star 
on a marble floor-plate marks the exact spot. Rich red velvet curtains with 
gilded lace ornaments covering them are gracefully draped over the alcove 
while fifteen silver lamps perpetually burn above this hallowed spot, six 
belonging to the Greeks, four to the Romans, and five to the Armenians. 
Nearby and very similarly located is another cave said to locate the Manger, 
or the feed trough, in which the infant Christ was laid in lieu of a cradle. 
This reputed manger is now in the Church of San-Maria Maggiore at Rome. 
A little to one side is the Chapel of the Annunciation of the angel to Joseph 
that he should flee into Egypt. Farther on is the Chapel of the Innocents 
where the large number slain by Herod's demonic decree are said to have 
been buried. The Milk Grotto is where Mary was in hiding before the flight 
and its snowy whiteness is due to the fact that a single drop of her milk 
fell on the floor. It is sacred to maternity and to this day many mothers 
kneel here and the flow of nourishment increases in sufficient quantities 
for their infants. Those unable to visit the grotto get the same results 
from eating a certain biscuit in which the dust from the rock is mixed. 
One chapel is dedicated to Saint Jerome, the eminent saint and scholar who 
lived for many years in this cave and translated his version of the Scriptures. 
He was canonized and is buried here. There are a number of other chapels 
of minor importance. 

On a tablet in the Place of the Nativity is a Latin inscription, "Hie de 
Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est.", on this spot Jesus Christ was 
born of the Virgin Mary. There is little room for doubt as to the reliability 
of this claim. At least it has the credibility of venerable antiquity. It will 
be remembered that the church was built in 330 A. D. and tradition says 
that the exact cave was well known and preserved up to that time. The 
marble of the floors of this Nativity Chapel is being worn by the knees and 
lips of devout worshipers who come in a continual stream from far and near. 

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On Christmas Day from 2 p. m. till midnight the town is filled with pilgrims 
and the church is crowded to suffocation with a scrouging, frantic condensed 
mass of human flesh, each one trying to get nearest the star. Turkish 
soldiers stand guard and in the past serious riots have occurred and a number 
have perished; right here on the spot where the Prince of Peace was born. 
The Mohammedan guards are continually in evidence. Mohammedans have 
always revered Christ as a great prophet next to Mohammed himself and 
under Turkish rule they exercised control of the church though it was a 
Catholic edifice, and under the terms of the English capture all sacred places 
were left as formerly. Hence the Moslem guards. 

About a mile north of the town is David's Well. When he and his men 
were hiding in the Cave of Adullam six miles south of Bethlehem, which 
town was in the possession of the Philistines, David expressed a desire for 
some of the water. "Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the 
well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate." Three mighty men broke through 
the enemy's lines and brought it to him, but he refused to drink of it be- 
cause the lives of the three had been so greatly hazarded in securing it, 
and he poured it out on the ground. His act is open to criticism. 

A short distance east of the town is the Shepherds' Field where sang 
the angels long ago. It is still regarded with great sanctity. On the day 
before Christmas large numbers of the pilgrims from many lands gather 
here and celebrate with a mammoth picnic, many of them becoming in- 
toxicated. The ground of the field is covered in spring time with beautiful 
scarlet anemones, the "lilies of the field" so richly adorned by the deft touca 
of the infinite artist that the gorgeous decorations of Solomon's courtly 
robes were not worthy to be compared. 

South of Bethlehem a few miles is a wild and seamy section known as 
the Wilderness of Engedi, in the western and wildest part of which is 
the Cave of Adullam mentioned above. It is entered by crawling on hands 
and knees over huge boulders. The cave is a large hallway 130 feet long 
and 40 broad with lateral chambers opening further into the limestone 
mountain. One cave but leads into another. Here David hid from Saui, 
and his father Jesse and family resorted unto him, as did many who were 
in distress and debt, and he organized them into a band over which he was 
captain. Nearby in the valley are the three large Pools of Solomon, or the 
reservoirs he built in the prosperous days of his reign. Fine stone aqueducts 



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conveyed the water to Jerusalem by Bethlehem and immense cisterns under 
the Temple were kept filled in readiness for siege, and the gardens blossomed 
and fruited under the effect of irrigation. There is still considerable wat?r 
in them. They have been repaired from time to time. Since 1902 a five- 
inch pipe conveys the water to Jerusalem. Not far off were the Gardens 
of Solomon described in Eccle, 2, and Song Sol. 4. 

Eighteen miles to the south of Bethlehem is Hebron, the city of Abraham, 
El-Khalil, the Friend. Its antiquity vies with that of Damascus as a con- 
tinuous city. It's first name was Kirjath-arba, from Arba, the father of 
Anak the giant. Mamre, however, a little to the west was the more prob- 
able residence of Abraham. The Cave of Macphela bought by him from 
the sons of Heth located at Hebron gets its interest from the fact that 
Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, are all buried here. 
The graves are generally understood to be authentic. A fine Mosque covers 
the grave and but few favored dignitaries save Moslems have ever been 
privileged to enter the caves. It is one of the deepest regrets of the writer's 
life that he did not get to view these, the world's most famous tombs. Some 
day it may be this coveted privilege shall come. Photos possessed give a 
good general view. We shall borrow the fine description of Mr. Henry 
Morganthau, who as our ambassador to Turkey recently visited the tombs, 
securing special permission from the Sultan: 

"Several of the tombs were above ground, and over them were erected 
stone catafalques, their sides adorned with gorgeously embroidered rugs, 
and broken by grilled doorways, through which entrance to the tomb itself 
was permitted. (He means here that of Abraham.) The other tombs were 
in caves below the mosque. They could be seen through holes left in the 
floor for that purpose." At the suggestion of Dr. Hoskins, a Christian 
missionary of the party, ten minutes were spent in silent prayer and Mr. 
Morganthau, a Jew, says that "the ten minutes spent in this prayer was the 
most sacred of my life." He says, "Never have I experienced so solemn 
and exalted an emotion as that which filled my spirit, standing there to 
worship in these tombs four thousand years old around which converged 
and met a sublime religious history which had altered the life of one-half 
the human race for forty centuries." Not far away is the Oak of Mamre 
in a garden. It is large but not that of four thousand years ago. Acorns 
are sold the pilgrim for souvenirs. Here appeared the Lord to Abraham 



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as he sat in the door of his tent on the day before the destruction of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, and from some peak nearby he viewed its ascending smoke. 
Here lived Jacob when Joseph was taken from him. Later Joshua captured 
and destroyed it and gave it to Caleb, his brave compatriot. It became one 
of the Cities of Refuge. David resided here seven and one-half years and 
Absalom was born here. The brave Abner was killed and buried here and 
later came here Absalom to steal away the hearts of the people from his 
father under the pretext of performing a religious vow. Here his rebellion 
started that ended so ingloriously and so deplorably for this rebellious and 
ungrateful son. But it is most renowned for its possession of the tomb of 
an old shepherd who went out long before from home and kindred at the 
command of God, not knowing whither he went, but because of his implicit 
faith in God and obedience to him became the father of an endless progeny 
known as the sons of God that shall eventually be as numerous as the stars 
of heaven and the sands of the sea for multitude. 



171 



CHAPTER XV. 
Palestine the Old and the New. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Palestine, the Old and the New. 

Notwithstanding its smallness Palestine has filled a place in the eyes 
and actions of the past far in excesss of its size. It has been the pawn 
for which nations have striven back and forth with all the vehemence of 
their capacity. Dynasties have risen and fallen because of her, and her 
total soil has been soaked in the blood not only of her own population, but 
that of her invading hosts. 

No spot of land has been so distinguished and no people have suffered so 
much as her people. Belgium is described as the "Cock-pit of Europe." 
Palestine is the "Cock-pit of the world." The march of armies, the clash 
of weapons of war, and the din of battle has ever been hers. Into her and 
through her have marched Assyrians and Babylonians, Egyptians and 
Ethiopians, Hittites and Israelites, Midianites and Syrians, Greeks and 
Romans, Parthians and Persians, Arabs and Mongols, Turks and Franks, 
and three thousand white crosses at Jerusalem and others at various points 
tell of the recent baptism of her war torn soil. Jerusalem herself from 
earliest times to its destruction A. D. 70 by the Roman legions, including 
thirty-three centuries of her history, according to the eminent historian, 
George Adam Smith, "has endured some twenty sieges of the utmost se- 
verity; almost twenty blockades and military occupations; .... earthquakes 
which have rocked her foundations, .... and about eighteen reconstructions." 

"Death rode upon the sulphury siroc, 

Red battle stamped his foot and nations felt the shock." 

Even the author of Lamentations could say of her 500 years before Christ, 
"Behold and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow." Lam. 1:2. Then 
imagine her sufferings for two and a half succeeding milleniums. Says 
Milman, "Jerusalem has probably witnessed a far greater portion of human 
misery than any other spot upon the earth." Despite all this she has 
steadily persisted and vast populations have clung to and subsisted upon 
her soil. It is estimated that two million Israelites entered with Joshua, 
including the two and a half tribes that settled east of the Jordan. Per- 
haps a million more remained of original inhabitants, as many of its most 
desirable sections, including much of the Jordan Valley, remained un- 



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subdued. It is reliably estimated that at least six million were there in 
the time of Christ. 

Excavators have found at Lachish six successive cities and this is true 
in multiplied instances. On top cf the soil are remains of ancient aqueducts, 
temples, palaces, demolished ruins, roadways, and relics of a long and 
glorious past. Beyond the deductions of the explorers on and below ground, 
we know but little in detail cf what vast peoples and what teeming cities 
of wealth and splendor existed from Dan to Beer-Sheba. After Israelitish 
occupation we have the definite chronicle of sacred and profane history, both 
of which encourage us to believe that the productivity of the soil met the 
needs of her dense populations. 

Once the slopes of the many hills and mountains were either covered 
with forests or decked with vine covered terraces and olive orchards, while 
its vales waved with golden harvests and vast herds of cattle pastured fat 
upon its rich herbage. The forests conserved and retained the winter rains 
and there gushed forth from the granite hillsides many streams along whose 
banks harvests and orchards alternated with gold and green. It was indeed 
a land that flowed with milk and honey and oil from the rocks. 

Its two most glorious epochs were first, Solomon's wide and rich reign; 
second, the years just before Christ and up to 364 A. D., when Rome be- 
came divided, the one Jewish and co-operative, the other Roman and com- 
pulsive. But when in 637 A. D. Palestine fell to the Mohammedan Caliphs 
and the Turks the blistering blight of Islam settled down dark and dismal 
upon her. From then till 1917 when the good hand of God broke her strangle 
hold and a progressive nation assumed the mandatory control the land dis- 
integrated and its people suffered and starved and diminished in numbers 
and in quality until today all the trees are gone, virtually all the terraces 
are washed down into the valleys, Bedouin herdsmen follow wandering flocks, 
pasturing on what meager remains of harvested crops they can find. For 
nine months the hot sun bakes the dry hillsides and the breezes fill the air 
with lime dust. The population today of Palestine is but 700,000, four-fifths 
of whom are Mohammedans, 76,000 are Jews, and 77,000 are Christians, 
mostly Catholics. But one-tenth of its former population now eke out a 
miserable subsistence. But its former glory may be repeated. The soil 
is rich and productive as of old. Granted favorable conditions and again 



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will the vine, the fig tree, the almond and the olive make verdant the slopes 
while the sower may go forth to sow and the reaper may rejoice over 
abundant harvests that wave for a prosperous and happy people. 

On December 11, 1917, at high noon the clock struck the hour that 

presaged the regeneration of this long cursed land. General Edmund H. H. 

Allenby entered Jerusalem and the blighting Turk fled. The people wept 

for joy. The world's pulse quickened, for the civilized world loves Palestine 

and is tremendously interested in it. Had there come no other asset of the 

war, the liberation of the Holy Land was worth all the effort and suffering 

and sacrifice incident to the awful struggle. What England then possessed 

she now holds, and will hold, and her record of just and wise administration 

elsewhere will be and is now being sustained. She of herself is able to 

supervise and finance the vast development of Palestine resources. Bui 

Jews the world over have asked the privilege of bringing back the land of 

their fathers to its erstwhile glory. Zionism today is the world's foremost 

enterprise. The Keren Hayesod is the international organization that has 

aroused world Jewry and multi-millions of dollars are being and will be 

poured forth in addition to government resources. There is, of course, a 

division within Jewish ranks, but not serious enough to prevent enthusiastic 

success. Then the Moslem world and the Pope are very unfavorable, the 

former very fanatically objective, the latter discreetly so, but a wise 

diplomacy and humane consideration will obviate all these difficulties in the 

end. Whatever other objections are made there are two that compel 

meritorious consideration. First, the oppressed Jewry in Russia and other 

similar situations needs a homeland of free atmosphere. Second, Palestine 

itself needs the brains, money, and restorative wizardry of the published 

Zionist program. This program includes in its intended benefits all of the 

residents and promises faithfully to build Palestine not only for Jews but 

for Moslems and Christians as well. In keeping with this broad and wise 

policy Earl Balfour, England's great Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 

issued on November 2, 1917, his memorable statement known as "The Balfour 

Declaration." It is brief and is as follows: "His Majesty's Government 

views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the 

Jewish People, and will use its best endeavors to facilitate the achievement 
of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which 

may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish com- 



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munities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews 
in any other country." On January 11, 1922, he reaffirmed his position in 
these words, "Where I stood then, I stand now. The hope I then enter- 
tained, I entertain still .... My interest in the cause, my belief in its final 
success, my intense desire to see the ideal of the Jewish Home transformed 
into a great reality has not diminished or suffered any cooling during the 
years that have elapsed since the original Declaration was made." He is 
hailed by Jews everywhere as Cyrus the II making possible another and 
greater return of the scattered Nation to its homeland. The House of Com- 
mons under the zealous leadership of Mr. Winston Churchill, the Colonial 
Secretary, on July 4, 1922, by a vote of 292 to 35, ratified this Declaration. 
Zionists held a world jubilee. The United States House and Senate had just 
prior to that date passed a sympathetic resolution embodying the ideal of the 
Declaration. Now the way is open and the English Government issued its 
manifesto on July 1 giving its Palestine program, called "The White Paper." 
It is that which was adopted July 4. This paper recognizes the various and 
serious difficulties, cautions reasonable deliberation and slowness of action, re- 
stricts immigration to sane limits, and gives Zionists the right to lay out and 
execute their mammoth program under the protection of the Union Jack. 
For the past fifty years Jews have been colonizing and fifty colonies have 
been established. Large quantities of land have been purchased. The 
most prosperous location is near Jaffa at the town of Tel-Aviv, founded 
thirteen years ago, which by great hardship has made the desert to bloom 
as the rose. Citrus fruits grow well and plentifully produce. Beautiful 
gardens abound. It elicited Mr. Churchill's extravagant praise and is but 
a prophecy of future developments in the large. No one has ever accused 
the Jewish nation of being brainless or moneyless. This city has a popula- 
tion of 12,000 and has recently voted bonds for thoroughly modern improve- 
ments. Already there are factories for manufacturing bricks, fruit 
preserves, sweets, artificial mineral waters, cork plants, carpenter shops, 
etc., with much more in immediate prospect. An additional tract has re- 
cently been secured for an industrial center of 150 shops of various kinds, 
stores, banks, offices, and warehouses. Another 1,250 acre addition has also 
been purchased for fruits and vegetables. Thus can be seen a model of 
many similar industrial and civic centers all over the land. Fifty years from 
today Palestine will be the garden of the world. Its climate is healthy 
save on certain marshes and streams and war against the anopheles mosquito 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



and drainage will eliminate all that. Eucalyptus gardens will be planted. 
These counteract malaria. With fine harbors constructed at Jaffa and Haifa 
and also near Gaza and with modern railroad facilities the greatest tourist 
and resort objective of the world is within almost immediate prospect. 
There are hot sulphur springs around the Sea of Galilee and up and down 
the Jordan valley and the slopes of the Anti-Lebanons and the mouuntains 
of Judea with intended forestation will make living or tourist residence 
there a joy and delight. Alexandria and Cairo are great winter resorts. 
Most of the country is elevated, and breezes continually blow. The nights 
even in August are delightfully cool. For nine months at least the Holy 
Land under the magic of modern skill will prove the resort of the civilized 
world. The Sea of Galilee will be belted with beautiful villas and bathing 
and sailing and fishing will furnish continual pleasure. Sentiment will play 
its large part. Jews will be passionately drawn to it and Gentiles but 
little less. 

Palestine is rich in agricultural and horticultural possibilities and the 
essential means of developing these is at hand and will be discussed below. 
In 1913 the exports of high grade barley reached 19,000 tons, olive oil 
3,500 tons, oranges 1,608,000 tons, almonds over 2,000,000 pounds, light 
wine 1,000,000 gallons, one million watermelons. These exports fell off 
during the war but now are rapidly coming back and will steadily increase. 
At least 80 per cent of all Palestine is possible agricultural land giving, 
with the Moab plains and Hauran beyond Jordan, an area of 20,000 square 
miles. 

Ezekiel cries out in his immortal vision, "Everything shall live whither 
the river cometh." He thus expresses the essential and fundamental need 
of Palestine's rehabilitation. Water, water, water. His description of the 
redemption of the desert and wilderness of En-Gedi — and such it surely is 
today — is but a prophetic epitome of possible and probable redemption of 
the whole land. The waters issued out of the Temple. In other words, 
religious inspiration and patriotism would furnish the reclamative means. 
This is being done. A religious nation holds the mandate. A religious 
people, a people whose solidarity has been preserved through the ages by 
its religion alone, are fulfilling the prophecy. This essential watering will 
occur from two sources. First, scientific forestation will hold and release 
gradually the heavy winter rainfall, which averages around thirty inches. 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



What does not percolate through the soil will easily be impounded and re- 
leased gradually. Secondly, and most important, gigantic and wholesale 
irrigation schemes will harness and distribute every drop of water its 
numerous streams afford — and one would be surprised at their number. Mr. 
Pinchus Ruttenburg, a great civil engineer and a Jew, has secured a con- 
cession from Great Britain for controling these waters and electrifying as 
well as irrigating vast regions. His concession is known as the Ruttenburg 
Scheme and already Jews alone have subscribed more than the amouat 
estimated for the project. American Jews at once rushed forward ani 
took $1,110,000 of stock in the enterprise. The authority is secured, the 
money is in hand, the plan has been endorsed as eminently feasible. It 
comprehends building a great dam south of and near Lake Galilee, using the 
escaping water for a large electric plant to be used primarily for pumping 
the fresh waters of the Lake into an upland reservoir that with canals and 
aqueducts will irrigate all the Jordan Valley and other sections adjacent. 
This will not destroy the Lake but will dry up the Dead Sea and make 
available its salt and other mineral riches. Smaller projects will be built 
on other streams and what the Nile has done for Egypt on a large scale, 
and what the Barada has done for Damascus on a small scale, will be done by 
Ruttenburg for Palestine. In addition efforts will be made for a big 
system of artesian wells if necessary. With water, with soil fertility, with 
climate, who can picture the next century in Palestine? 

Still another project far more staggering than this has been much dis- 
cussed and endorsed by leading Norwegian and English engineers. It con- 
templates building an underground tunnel 135 feet in diameter from the 
Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea, which is a fall of 1,300 feet in some fifty 
miles. This tunnel would perhaps go deep under Jerusalem. From it side 
flumes would lead to small electric plants, the salt water being flumed back 
into the Dead Sea. At a suitable location a mammoth electric plant would 
generate millions of horse power that would electrify all Palestine. It was in- 
tended to transmit power to the pumping station at Galilee. This would raise 
the level of the Dead Sea but six inches and damage no soil not hitherto dead. 
The two projects are feasible and do not conflict and though the Ruttenburg 
scheme will be first in execution the other will come along as needed. 
This is not Utopian or impractical. Sacred relics will remain, the old 
walls of Jerusalem will abide, but Jerusalem will be builded outside the 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



present city into a metropolis of a half million souls. A great Jewish 
University is already being established on Mount Scopus without the walls. 
The city will perhaps be a religious and educational capitol and residential 
city for the rich. I have but hinted at the problem of Zionism which openly 
claims a coming Jewish majority. It takes no seer to predict that probability, 
and that is what stirs the Moslem to desperation. Candor compels me to 
say that well may he be aroused. He must go, whether he should or not. 
Many think his past record demands it. The Jew will possess the land. 
He will pay good prices for it. He will run Palestine. Brains always rule. 
However, he will need native labor and will pay well for it. In the mean- 
time old Mesopotamia will be brought back, harnessing the waters of the 
Tigris and Euphrates and at an estimated cost of $128,000,000 room for a 
prosperous Moslem multitude will be provided on such favorable terms 
that a gradual and steady flux of emigrants will congregate back here at 
the cradle of the race. Eden thus will return, at least materially. 

Suitable industrial 1 ventures at present feasible and needed in Palestine 
are flour milling, olive oil and etherial oil factories, sugar refineries, cocoa 
and chocolate factories, wines, starch, paper milling for orange packing, 
cotton textiles — for Syria already grows 2,000 tons and Palestine can and 
will grow it largely — tanneries of which there is abundant material and 
there will be much more, glass works, machine shops, building materials, 
silicate stones, chemical research and manufacturing industries. Jewish 
initiative and resources will suggest many more. 

The mineral resources of Palestine are very rich. There are quarry 
stones, abundant everywhere, lime abundant and of good quality, salt in 
vast quantities, carnalite, important as manure, found in abundance in the 
waters of the Dead Sea as is also bromine, sulphur in environs of same, 
phosphates east of the Jordan, asphalt, bituminous limes in plentiful 
quantities, petroleum. Palestine is between the oil regions of Egypt and 
Mesopotamia and oil springs are found in several places. Also geological 
reports are favorable. Leases in large quantities have been taken up by 
English and American companies, including the Standard Oil interests. 
Copper, alum, amber, ozokerite, or kerosene bearing shale — these and many 
more might be mentioned. 

Politically we cannot surmise what the hand of Providence shall decree 
or what will be the moves on the national chess board, but we believe that 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



England will keep her just and considerate hand upon this loved spot and 
will foster all legitimate development. A Jewish Republic may become an 
eventuality. Fifteen million Jews only are in the world. Only half of them 
are oppressed and always only a minority would wish to return. But the 
rest will lay down the money for those who do wish it and Jewish brother- 
hood or national cohesion will always back up this anticipated realization 
of a vision that has always danced before an exiled nation whose persecu- 
tions have cried to heaven for redress, and the persistence of whose 
nationalism and cohesion is the world's most ethnic miracle. It may be 
that the prophecies are literal and while the Christian is now the son of 
Abraham by faith, who knows but that this Palestinian rehabilitation ds but 
the prologue of that glorious drama when Israel shall again gather 
around the brow of Calvary, not this time to deride or to crucify assentedly, 
but to look in tearful penitence on His face whom they once pierced, even 
though it was honestly done, and will welcome Him in glorious triumph to 
a throne and a kingdom worldwide in its sweep and universal in its blissful 
results, when "every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue shall confess that 
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Phil. 2:10-11. 
"Thus saith the Lord: I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst 
of Jerusalem and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the moun- 
tain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain." Zach. 8:2. 



182 




i 



The Author as Sheik of the Sahara Desert. 



183 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Going Down Into Egypt. 

It took Israel 40 years to cross the desert. It was done by our little 
party by rail in 16 hours. Thus the magic of the inventor, the skill of the 
mechanic, the daring of the pioneer, have condensed the duration of years 
into a few brief hours, and have abbreviated the winding mileage of the 
desert into a short steel ribbon of commerce and transportation and, as 
mentioned in a former chapter, have actually brought the Nile into Pales- 
tine. For as we sped along southward we saw the large water pipes, some- 
times above ground, sometimes indicated by a thrown up sand ridge, while 
at every station passengers filled their small water jars at the friendly 
spigots and the engine drank liberally. Over a smooth roadbed we hastened 
and the shrill engine whistle rang across the blanched and barren stillness 
of the desert like a thing of life screaming in triumph over the torrid heat 
of the sun, the oceans of sand, and the hitherto impassabilities of the desert. 
Here and there at rare intervals we saw palm groves and other vegetation, 
a sure index of an occasional spring. We caught flashes of blue from the 
Mediterranean as we drew near its shore, which we soon began to hug, de- 
touring at Lake Sirbon, a large lagoon fringed with marsh. We passed 
Bir-el-Abt where is a good well and some trees and about four p. m. we 
came into Kantara on the Suez canal. Here we transferred to the Cairo 
train and here we had our patience sorely taxed over the exactions of 
custom officers whose only qualification was a uniform and a piece of chalk. 
Five dollars was extorted from this scribe, every cent unjustly. We had the 
satisfaction of taking it up personally with the head office in Alexandria 
and long after our return home received a draft in full for the amount. 

The canal is about 200 feet wide and carries thirty feet of water. While 
we were waiting several large steamers and much smaller craft slow ! y 
passed under the draw. This canal is a world convenience and a source of 
large revenue to England. It was built by Ferdinand deLessups, whose 
old home is at Ismailia, five miles south, where a fresh water canal con- 
nects with the Nile near Cairo. Kantara is on the ancient highway over 
which traveled Abraham and Sara and over which migrated Jacob and his 
family "going down into Egypt." In fact the railroad had conformed largelv 
to this old and much used caravan route and even still we met or passed 



185 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Going Down to Egypt. 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



camel trains rocking along at snail's pace as it was done in the days before 
Abraham was. What a contrast of the old with the new. Shall the camel 
pass before the iron horse, the auto, or the flying machine, as the horse has 
done, or will do, in America? We cannot look so far into the future, but 
some day when water shall flow through the desert and the wilderness and 
solitary place shall be made glad it may be so. If, as St. Paul affirmed at 
Athens, God has set the boundaries of the habitations of men, it may also 
be said that He has also placed the needed animals for his service and 
sustenance. The camel is one of God's best creatures. His worth is only 
exceeded by his ugliness. We saw him tried under all conditions and he 
was always ready to do his master's bidding. 'Tis true that he growls when 
he gets down and grunts when he gets up, but means nothing by it. The 
following composition of the little boy is worth giving here: "The cammil 
is a sheep of the desert. It does not have to get angry to get its back up 
for nature made it that way. When cammils go on a journey they drink 
as much water as to last many days. Such cammils are called aquiducks." 
Blessings on the "cammil." We would like to say more of him but must 
desist at present. We shall meet him again at the Pyramids and shall add 
a few words of him then. 

At nine p. m. we pulled into Cairo. Of course we were greatly fatigued, 
but a bath and rest in a fine room in the New Khedivial hotel made us over. 
We were wakened by the chant of the muezzin over our heads nearby and 
the screech of the Osiris bird. This bird, sacred to the Egyptians, nests 
in the many palm trees. Under our window was the beautiful park of the 
Syrian Club and in each of the many palms it seemed that "old Sirus" sat 
and screeched. He is of a dull dove color and is slightly larger than a 
pigeon. We saw them everywhere and heard them where we did not see. 

In riding from Kantara to Cairo we had crossed the Land of Goshen 
where Joseph placed his father's family and where they remained 430 yeais. 
Ex. 12:40. The Nile divides just north of Cairo into several mouths and 
forms a rich delta which spreads out like a fan. This is alluvial soil and 
very fertile. From the east prong to the upper Red Sea stretches a vale 
or plain through which ran an ancient canal of sufficient size to float large 
ships. It connected the Red Sea with the Nile. It is now filled up. This 
section was especially suitable for pasturage of the vast flocks of Israel, 
as that was their main occupation. At the beginning of the 80 years' op- 
pression Rameses the Second, the Pharaoh that knew not Joseph, forced the 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Israelites to build two large fortified cities within this territory. They were 
called "treasure cities" and named Pithom and Raamses, and were used to 
house the rent collected from the Israelite slaves and to garrison the land 
to keep them subdued,, as they were increasing so rapidly. Exodus 1:11. 

At tne head or handle of the beautiful green Nile fan delta sits Cairo 
like a diamond setting off the emerald background. Heroditus, the father 
of history, says that "Egypt is the gift of the Nile." This famous river, 
the longest on earth, rises 4,037 miles south in the heights of equatorial 
Africa in the lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza, that is the White 
Nile prong, so called from the clay through which it runs discoloring the 
water. The other prong, the Blue Nile, rises way up in the Abysinian 
mountains 10,000 feet high and descends through a series of falls. They 
unite at Khartoum. The melting snows on these heights produce the Nile 
freshets which periodically overflow and so fructify the celebrated valley 
that it has made an ancient civilization of peculiar prominence and still 
sustains its fame with dependable seasons and abundant harvests. The 
Assouan dam, farther up the river, is one of the world's most gigantic 
undertakings and by it the water is impounded and properly distributed. 
Because of evaporation and irrigation the Nile decreases in volume as it 
nears the sea. At Cairo it is 1,100 feet wide. A beautiful little island called 
Rhoda lies in its middle. Here is shown you the ancient bathing place of 
Pharaoh's daughter and the spot in a bunch of flags or rushes where the 
arklet containing the "proper child" Moses was discovered. It may be the 
spot. Nearby is the nilometer built in the early part of the 8th century by 
one of the rulers. It is a well with descending stair steps and a scale for 
measuring the height of rising water. Prior to its establishment a standard 
tax was imposed and failure to pay entailed great hardships. Some years 
the rise was too meager to guarantee a harvest. This nilometer was in- 
tended to regulate the tax according to the registered amount of water. 
It helped much for some time but dishonest officers took advantage of the 
ignorant fellahin and it fell into disrepute. One-half mile north of Rhoda 
is the island of Gizireh, somewhat larger and across it runs the Nile bridge 
over which passes the main road leading to the pyramids. 

The Nile valley is sometimes "20 miles wide but averages 7 miles. Canals 
and irrigation ditches are the main methods of furnishing water to the fields. 
Then there are wells with chain buckets lifted by oxen treading round and 
round, or perhaps donkeys. This is called "Sakieh." These buckets empty 



189 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



a constant stream into a ditch. Then there are smaller, simpler methods, 
notably that used by the hand lift called "Shaduf." A pole balanced on 
an upright carrying a basket daubed with pitch is dipped into the canal or 
the river and swung around and elevated to a higher level of irrigation. It 
is a tedious and laborious process but successful for a small area. The 
Upper Nile begins to rise in February and reaches the delta below Cairo in 
May and is highest in September and remains at its maximum level for 
14 days. The usual rise is 24 feet. It leaves a rich deposit and in some 
places the alluvial depth is 40 feet. As is known, the climate is tropical. 
The fields produce lavishly of cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar-cane, sorghum, 
barley, beans, clover, maize, and much else, especially vegetables, including 
melons and cucumbers. The plowing is still crude and done by camels and 
donkeys on the dry land and water buffaloes in the water or marshy sections. 

Cairo is a Moslem center and minarets are as abundant almost as in 
Damascus, but more ornate. The muezzin still calls prayers for a fanatic 
multitude. The city today, new Cairo, El Kahireh, "The Victorious," con- 
tains 600,000 people or more. Old Cairo, Fostat, was situated nearer the 
Nile and south of the Citadel. It was built in 700 A. D. The Citadel is the 
chief building in modern Cairo and sits on its highest elevation, 250 feet, 
in the southeastern margin of the city. It covers several acres and is called 
"The Castle of the Nile." It was erected in 1166 A. D. by the great Saladin, 
the chivalrous foe of Richard Coeur de Lion. The large stones composing 
it were brought from several of the small pyramids and one of the large 
ones and no respect was shown for these monumental and massive tombs, 
some of them at least 5,000 years old. Here in its great court Mohammed 
Ali in 1811 treacherously slaughtered 479 of the Mamalukes, or descendants 
of the powerful slave kings that preceded him. They were invited to a 
banquet and fired on by soldiers hidden in the galleries overhead. Only 
one, Emyn Bey, leaped his horse over the wall, falling 100 feet, and escaped 
by springing from the saddle just before reaching the ground. He sustained 
a broken collar bone and a general shake up but fled to a mosque and thence 
was spirited to the desert and survived. Within the Citadel are numerous 
buildings. The celebrated Alabaster Mosque is the finest one in the city. 
In erecting it Mohammed Ali bankrupted Egypt. It cost four million dollars 
and is indescribably beautiful. White alabaster pillars and walls glisten 
as the light floods down through the mammoth dome. Rich curtains hang 
here and there and the floor is covered with great rugs of fabulous cost. 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



Many of them, however, were donated by wealthy rulers and other patrons, 
as in Omar and Omalyade. This mosque was designed as the tomb of its 
builder and his mummied remains lie in a gorgeous mausoleum in one 
corner of the building. We climbed to the highest point of the Citadel and 
obtained a view long to be remembered. Due east and nearby are the 
Mokattam Hills containing petrified forests and as far as sight can reach 
wave the white billows of a sea of sand. To the north and west lies the 
whole city of Cairo with its narrow streets and towering minarets. To the 
east is the Nile and ten miles beyond stand the lordly and majestic pyramids, 
silent sentinels of dead centuries and vanished glory. They do not seem 
so large at this distance. We had ample reason to revise our estimate the 
following day. 

The Mosque of the Sultan Hassan is adjacent to the Citadel and is be- 
lieved by some to be more elegant than that of Mohammed Ali. It may 
have once excelled it, and indeed there are many magnificent interior fur- 
nishings, but in the main the building is in decay. The oldest mosque is 
that of Hassoun, not far from the above. One of its three minarets has 
outside spiral stairs up which the Sultan might ride his horse if he should 
so desire. This was his expressed reason for ordering it so built. In Old 
Cairo is the Mosque of Amer, formerly alluded to in Chapter X, with the 
duplicate columns similar to those in the Mosque El-Aksa. Passage between 
these was a sure passport to heaven. Amer was the great general of the 
Khalif Omar. When it was completed he exclaimed: "With this mosque 
the religion of El-Islam rises, and with its fall perishes the faith of our 
holy prophet." The natives still quote and believe this saying and the 
dilapidated condition of the building must haunt them continually. It is 
prophetic, for the care any people exercise toward their houses of worship 
is an unfailing index of prevailing religious conditions. The mosques 
generally are crumbling and their worshippers decreasing. There are many 
mosques in and around the city but the above are the most prominent. It 
is significant that nowhere we toured are mosques in course of erection, 
while most of them are in need of repair. Islam must go. The crescent 
must wane before the cross. 

The bazarrhs of Cairo are exceedingly interesting and approximate those 
of Damascus. They are segregated as there. The principle bazarrh street 
is El-Khaleel, a long street running north and south and paralleling the 



191 



\ 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



canal of the same name, El-Khalia. There are the Tunis bazarrhs for 
Arab and Moorish cloaks, rugs, shoes, burnooshes, etc.; the El Azhar or 
book stores where Korans are sold as well as printed; the El-Ghoria selling: 
cotton goods, silks, fezes, etc.; the gold and silver lace shops; bazarrhs for 
fruits; slippers, red and yellow colors predominating; carpets and divan- 
rugs; antique ornaments; jeweled scimetars; all sorts of goods from far 
off India, from Persia and the Arabian desert — from everywhere. These 
bazarrhs, many of them, employ runners who speak good English and are 
of suave manner and good address who, as self-appointed guides, steer you 
into the proper shop where its genial proprietor sits among his stuff wait- 
ing for you as the spider did the fly. However, you can have the usual 
diversion of bargaining as at Damascus and can get reliable goods at fair 
prices if you know how. Everywhere you go you meet the walking sales- 
man of beads, post cards, cigarettes, and canes. The beadsman holds out his 
arm, over which hangs a variety of beads so select and beautiful that no 
one can fail to admire and few fail to purchase. The bazarrh streets are. 
narrow and dark and unsanitary and exhibit the characteristic commingling 
of men, women, children, horses, donkeys, camels, dogs, and beggars. Here 
we saw the peculiar brass ornament on the Moslem woman's nose. We were 
told that it was a sign of marriage and subserviency to the husband; that 
when the wife was unruly her lord pressed down on this nose ornament 
and the great pain produced usually effected the desired control. The day 
of the militant suffragette has not come in Egypt. It surely served to hold 
the black veil away from the nostrils and thus facilitates respiration. The 
prevailing dress of the Moslem woman is depressing black with veil to 
match. The better class women wear silky transparent white veils that 
reveal jet black roguish eyes bewitching and beautiful. Their blackness, 
is increased by the use of kohl, while the fingers are pinked with henna. 
On the streets the women never speak to men and are not spoken to by 
them. We saw them peering through latticed windows at the "Americana" 
entourage. We did not visit a moslem home and saw no unveiled women, 
but from outward appearances the middle and lower classes are much cursed, 
and depressed while the better class are attractive. 

We did not get to see the dancing or howling dervishes, much to our 
regret. But we did see the professional fakers. One arose from his seat 
beside us on the train out to visit the Obelisk and ran a twenty penny nail 



192 



A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE. 



down his nose and extracted it from his mouth along with a multitude cf 
smaller articles. He soon collected enough from our party to pay his fare. 

We saw him again at the hotel. But another more skillful than he gave 
us a parlor performance both interesting and puzzling. From a little silken 
bag he took out a small white rabbit and many other articles. Then with 
these he performed amazing tricks, such as pulling eggs from the rabbit's 
nose, eating cotton and igniting it in his stomach, apparently, and blowing 
out a volume of smoke like a steam engine, extracting coins from one's 
hand or pocket, removing rings from a stick of which you held both ends, 
and a number of other antics of similar nature. He kept repeating "come 
rabbit, come snake, come debbil, gully, gully, gully," the last word sup- 
posedly meaning "devil." It gave a weirdness to the performance we did 
not relish. 

The Mosque El Ashar, or the Book Mosque, is now the University of 

Cairo. It is a large building on the east side of the city. It is boasted that 

it is "the largest university in the world," containing 14,000 students, but 

due allowance must be made for Moslem mendacity. But it is literally filled 
with a mass of youth, many of them mere beginners, and in the large court 
they sit on the hard floor in groups, usually clustered with a teacher around 
a column reading the Koran and receiving instructions. The buzzing noise 
is nerve-racking. It is interspersed with hissings by the teacher to call 
attention. Back and forward they rock and seem to be repeating phrases 
of something. Filth and poverty abound. Ranged around the court are 
rooms, or stalls, where the students able to pay a pittance sleep, while those 
unable to pay sleep on the hard floor. Bazarrhs, barber shops, laundry, 
traders of various sorts, are mixed in with the "university" bunches. It 
is said that it does some good work, but to an American it is a ridiculous 
burlesque on education worthy of the genius of a Sancho Panza. We were 
informed that much immorality exists, and the brazen deportment of various 
mere children on the streets indicated as much. Mohammedanism contains 
no moral code and its followers seem to possess no moral conscience or 
sense of refinement or shame. There is but one prophecy of the final out- 
come of such a religion — if such it can be called — that outcome is self- 
destruction and inward disintegration. Its outstanding feature is an 
intolerant fanaticism as ignorant as it is fanatical. The world is far from 
conversion but Christianity with its beneficial by-products is steadily, though 

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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



slowly, making its triumphant way over these frightful odds and obstacles 
and some day in God's own time it shall prevail universally. 

"Hasten, Lord, the glorious time 
When beneath Messiah's sway 
Every nation, every clime, 
Shall the gospel call obey." 



194 



CHAPTER XVII. 
Gizeh — Heliopolis — Cheops — The Sphinx. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Gizeh — Heliopolis — Cheops — The Sphinx. 

The Gizeh Museum, the mammoth repository of Egyptian antiquities, is 
situated just across the Nile on the road to the Pyramids. A beautiful 
garden with fountains, parks, and Egyptian statuary surrounds it. In front 
is a large sphinx, one of many seen here and elsewhere. Here has been 
collected all the finest specimens that have survived the hands of in- 
appreciative vandalism or the purloining claws of covetousness. A large 
collection was removed from the Boulak museum. From Memphis, Thebes, 
Luxor, Karnak, Philae, Cairo, Alexandiia, Heliopolis, most of the 86 
pyramids; from all Egypt have they come, and now repose under massive 
walls and bayonetted guards, for free inspection, for discriminative study, 
and for permanent preservation. One can spend an indefinite time here 
wandering from room to room and the study would amply justify any time 
thus invested. But it is beyond the scope of this chapter or the ability of 
this scribe to attempt more than a passing mention of a few of the out- 
standing objects of interest visited. Here are the elegant sarcophagi of 
virtually all the ancient kings of the several ruling dynasties of the past. 
They are of vari-colored marble and exquisite hand decorations. The same 
can be said of the Sacred Bulls, once of prime importance in Egyptian 
worship. Here are beautiful pictorial and sculptured representations of 
ancient life and customs, often depicted in panoramic form. These throw 
a flood of light on the antique past and hieroglyphic experts have thus 
been able to rewrite the enigmatic story of these wondrous peoples. There 
is sculpture of all kinds that no hand of today can equal in conception or 
execution. For example, one can never forget "The Village Chief," stand- 
ing with a lifelikeness seen nowhere in any of the world's collections. It 
is 4,000 years old and looks out at you with a human expression that makes 
one listen for what he is about to say. He seems "yearning to mix himself 
with life." It is of wood perfectly rounded and proportioned and is 
marvelously preserved. The eyeballs are of white quartz, the iris is of 
darker stone, the pupil is a silver nail, and the lids are thin folds of bronze. 
For 40 centuries it had remained in its hiding place and represented some 
eminent personage. It was found by the great Mariette, the world's 
most famous Egyptologist, whose fine monument is in the Gizeh garden. 



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A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE 



When he broke through the concealed door and entered the vault containing 
this statue bearing testimony to such a remote and undisturbed antiquity, 
he burst into tears. Even the footprints of the burial squad remained on 
the sand floor of the large vault. It was so lifelike and resembled so mu;h 
the overseer of the village nearby that his assistants exclaimed, "The 
Village Chief," and this cognomen will ever cling to this famous statue. 
In the Mummy Room we met Rameses II, the Pharaoh of the Israelitish 
oppression. On one side was that of his father, Seti, the Pharaoh of Joseph's 
time. On the other side reposed that of Rameses' son, Meneptha, the 
Pharaoh of the Exodus. Rameses lived to be 87 years old and ruled Egypt 
67 years. His fallen statue at Memphis weighs 900 tons and was trans- 
ported 150 miles. One great secret of Egyptian embalming was the ex- 
treme dryness of the climate. In the markets beef hangs for weeks without 
spoiling. 

Six miles northeast of Cairo near the El-Khalia Canal is Heliopolis, the 
famous city of On, the Oxford of Ancient Egypt. Potiphera its Priest 
was its Chancellor. Joseph married his daughter Asenath and thus formed 
a very diplomatic alignment. He doubtless studied there also. Moses 
graduated here and was much learned in the arts and wisdom of the 
Egyptians. Here studied Pythagorus, Euclid, Plato, Heroditus. It covered 
several acres and had 13,000 officials. Nothing now remains but the crumbled 
corner of one of the walls and the impressive obelisk with its base buried 
in the silted drift of centuries, but with its once gilded peak pointing to the 
same astrological sign as when with its mate it held intelligent converse 
with old Pythagorus, assisting him in that great geometric discovery, the 
secret of which so elated him that he sacrificed a hectacomb to the gods. 
These two tall obelisks were so placed and arranged in front of the Temple 
of the Sun that when the pointed shadows of both kissed each other in the 
front doorway it was high noon. These pyramidal points were tipped with 
pure gold and the chiseled hieroglphic inscriptions were gold filled and 
doubtless presented a most beautiful aspect. It is six feet square and stands 
above ground 66V2 feet. Its mate was destroyed 800 years ago. This one 
now remaining was hewn from the quarry and erected by Usertasen B. C. 
1740, under whose reign Joseph came to Egypt, and it is therefore 3,662 
years old. Down each of its four sides was a hieroglyphic hymn to the 
gods. These characters are almost filled up by beeswax and honeycomb. 

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Near Heliopolis is a garden of beauty in which is "The Virgin's Tree." 
It is a very large sycamore with spreading limbs and hollow trunk. It is 
very old, perhaps 500 years. We are informed that the Virgin Mary and 
the Child Jesus took refuge in it and that God caused a spider to spin its 
web across the hole, by which web they were saved from their pursuers. 
In 1861 the Khedive, Ismail Pasha, offered this tree to the Princess Eugenia 
of France to take home as an Egyptian souvenir. She thanked him but 
requested instead the skeleton of the spider that spun this marvelous web. 
Pieces of this tree's bark are sold for relics having protective and curative 
powers. Nearby the tree is a very fine well. Water was lifted by the 
"sakieh" or large wheel turned round by oxen. They were blindfolded to 
prevent their attention being attracted and thus interfering with their 
steady tramping. 

In this connection it should be mentioned that in Cairo we visited the 
Church of the Copts and were shown a cave deep under the floor where the 
Holy Family tarried in seclusion for quite a while. 

The Pyramids. There are 86 of them, great and small. Perhaps others 
have been demolished. They were built as tombs of the kings. As soon 
as one ascended the throne he began the erection of his tomb, each seeking 
to excel the others. The Pyramid of Cheops, the biggest of them all, is 
typical. It is nearest Cairo. Cheops is a corruption of Chufu, the second 
monarch of the fourth dynasty. It is six miles southwest of the city. It 
was built in 3733 B. C. and is therefore nearly 6,000 years old, though it 
is not the oldest one, if the largest. Cephren is 500 years its senior. 

"Old Time, himself so old, is like a child, 

And can't remember when these blocks were piled. 

Or caverns scooped; but, with amaz'd eye, 

He seemed to pause, like other standers-by, 

Half thinking how the wonders here made known 

Were born in ages older than his own." 

These two with Mycerinus are the largest in a group of three threes, or a 
group of nine. They are all arranged in triangular formation and from their 
smooth surfaces scholars of that day could calculate with exactness the Pro- 
cession of the Equinoxes and other astronomical data. 

Cheops covers 13 acres and contains enough gigantic blocks to erect 
several American cities or to build a fence around several states. It con- 



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tains 85,000,000 cubic feet of stone. Heroditus tells us that 100,000 men 
worked 10 years, changing every third year, to build the inclined causeway 
over which the stones were conveyed. This made 4,000,000 laborers, while 
another 7,000,000 built the Pyramid. It has been estimated that the leeks, 
radishes, and onions alone consumed by the laborers totaled $2,000,000. 

It is 482 feet high and at the base is 764 feet. A small rock hewn 
passage leads down a gradual slope into a small chamber in its heart. Here 
were the coffins of the King and his favorite queen. It is easy to believe 
that old Chufu was hated beyond all expression by the oppressed populace. 
The big stones composing it were handled by sheer man power and hewn 
far away and rolled or dragged over an inclined causeway for miles and 
miles by means of ropes, levers, etc. And this roadway was continually 
built up as needed. Cheops was originally plastered over smoothly outside 
but time has removed virtually all of it. With the help of guides one can 
ascend it and on a thirty-f o^t platform, made so by removal of the stones, 
one may stand and get a most marvelous view of the vast stretches sur- 
rounding, including the green Nile valley winding like some giant anaconda 
far to the heated south. An expert climber ascends and returns in eight 
minutes and wants you to compensate him for the feat even though you 
paid no attention to him. The guides are greedy and treacherously inclined 
and half way up on the climb threaten to leave you or to throw you off 
unless ycu pay them more bakshish. But they are lying. They pursue 
the same miserable tactics on guiding you into the dark interior. The 
Egyptian guides and camel drivers are utterly void of conscience. One 
loses all patience with them. It is easy to condone Moses' act of slaying 
his Egyptian. If he had only slain more of them. We rode camels from 
the end of the trolley line to the Pyramids. There seemed to be ten camels 
to each tourist and all drivers clamoring at once in broken English that 
his camel was the best of all. Each had famous names — Mark Twain, W. 
J. Bryan, Teddy Roosevelt, the Prince of Wales, etc. The writer's was 
named President Harding and proved to be a good camel. The sensation 
was pleasant and the fact of being able to ride the back of a President 
of the United States added some interest. In the preceding chapter we 
paid cur respects to this great animal. He fills a large place in human 
economy. He gets down before and gets up behind and one must lean far 
back to keep from falling. The nearest we can express the camel-back 



200 




The Sphinx and Cheops. 

"0, ageless, pulseless, flexless, tongueless Sphinx, 
Still crouching where, the green Nile belt retards 
The encroaching billows of a noiseless sea." 



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sensation is that one makes a figure 8. All sorts of coins and relics, each 
guaranteed to be genuine and antique, are shown you and the urgency and 
persistency of the salesmen is decidedly annoying. You may know that 
most of them are counterfeit. We never saw so many scarobs, or beetles. 
Literally bushels of them everywhere. The scarob was the emblem of im- 
mortality. 

Near Cheops is the Sphinx, the most interesting of all Egyptian objects. 
It is all hewn of one stone and the top of its head is the level of the base 
of the Pyramid nearby. It has the body of a lion and the head of a man 
and represents strength and wisdom, strength topped and controlled by 
wisdom. Its head is 100 feet in circumference and it is 64 feet from the 
top of its head to its claws, or the lower part of its body. Its paws are 
50 feet long and from tail to end of same is 90 feet. It was of reddish 
cyanite granite but is faded and is a light gray today. Its outstretched 
paws are hollow and through them lead passages to an ancient temple, the 
ruins of which have been unearthed. An altar to the Sun stood between 
its paws. It was a monument to King Chufu, who built the great Pyramid. 
Its beard was broken off and is now in the British Museum. Tradition says 
that it was shot away by the Mamaluke soldiers, who used the Sphinx as a 
target for cannon practice. Its expression is solemn, majestic, awe-inspiring, 
almost human. It is a masterpiece. It was 2,000 years old when Abraham 
was born and is good for thousands to come. 

Much has been said about "The Riddle of the Sphinx." A great picture 
by Merson in the Louvre throws more light by suggestion on this "riddle'' 
than anything we have seen. It is called "The Repose in Egypt." The 
upturned face of the Sphinx still asks the great questions of life. It stands 
appropriately on the edge of the desert to suggest the desert state of the 
world without God and immortality. Darkness broods over the scene. Only 
the far-off stars of tradition and philosophy shed their dim light upon life's 
dark and dismal desert. Between the arms of the Sphinx rest Mary and 
the Child Jesus in their flight from Herod's vengeance. The ass is tethered 
nearby in an oasis and Joseph half sleeps on the sand near the Mother and 
Child. The light of the picture streams forth from the face of the Babe, 
illumines the oasis and the adjacent sands, and stretches far away over the 
desolate waste and penetrates the darkness. So indeed did its ancient 
builder build far better than he knew. This creature of his insatiable spirit 



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seeking to express itself in carved granite, perhaps like all ages and races 
of men, "feeling after God lest haply they might find Him," but pointed 
forth unconsciously and pathetically to the fulfillment of all hopes, the 
culmination of all dreams, the attainment of all quests, the gratifying of all 
aspirations, the answering of all riddles, the satisfying of all hungers, — 
the Christ of Bethlehem, the anointed of God, the Bread of Life, the Light 
of the World. Jesus in the lap of the Sphinx — the religion of the future 
resting upon and fulfilling the religion of the past — that is the great Sphinx 
lesson. 

O, ageless, pulseless, flexless, tongueless Sphinx, 
Still crouching where the green Nile belt retards 
The encroaching billows of a noiseless sea, 
While far off gleam white sails of mystic ships 
On gliding to some far flung spectral shores. 

The lengthy circling centuries sweeping by 
Have little marred thy mute majestic mien. 
Thy silent eyes look forth as in the dim 
Remote and obscure ages of the past, 
Scanning the thoughts and deeds of passing men. 

They've seen dynastic powers rise and wane, 
Beheld them stalking forth upon the stage, 
Transact their minute parts and disappear 
Like vanished white clad ghosts, surviving but 
In chiseled hieroglyph or polished shaft. 

Thy face sustains its prime expressive pose 
As when from parent rock thou stoodest forth 
Sublime in all thine ancient royal poise. 
Thy riddle yet remains, up-sealed, unsolved; 
Time's crystal calyx holds thy secret still. 
Beneath the billowy sands that lave thy feet 
Embosomed hides the key. The clew is gone. 

From every nation, clime, a pilgrim stream 
Before thee stand upgazing to thy face 
Pleading that thou shouldst break thy silent spell. 
They pass and leave thee in disdainful calm. 

The golden stars look down, the mcon gleams on 

Over the waves of voiceless desert sand, 

Her kiss awakes thee not from thy long dream. 

Above thee Cheops stands, proud, pensive Sheik, 

Majestic o'er his pyramidal tribe, 

Thine unbreathed secret guarding through the years, 

His lordly brow uptowering to the sky, 

As round thy head the wheeling cycles fly. 

So wilt thou stand when unborn ages still 

Shall chant their legends to the sons of men. 

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L'ENVOY. 

Our Pilgrimage is ended. For seventeen stages we have journeyed to- 
gether in pleasant and in foul weather. If our fellow pilgrims have enjoyed 
this fellowship half as much as we, and if these descriptions have been 
helpful, we are amply repaid. We are now at Alexandria. The beautiful 
Cleopatra is lying alongside the wharf ready to steam out over the Mediter- 
ranean for the second half of our delightful tour. We shall soon visit 
Naples, Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, Lucerne, Paris, Brussels, the 
Flanders Fields, Bruges, London, Stratford-on-Avon, and many minor points. 
We should love to dwell at length on these, but time and space and the 
title of this volume limit us to Palestine. We are turning again home, 
back to God's great America, back to the true Holy Land, the best land the 
sun ever shone upon. One of the chief assets of this pilgrimage is an en- 
hanced love and appreciation of our own favored homeland. She stands 
in the world's forefront. The word "Americana" was the Open Sesame 
to all doors. We have the world's good will and to us look the eyes of the 
world for help and for guidance out of this present tangled wilderness. We 
cannot evade our responsibility under the excuse of a narrow construction 
of the Monroe Doctrine, nor will we in the end. Ours is a ponderous re- 
sponsibility. May the same Divine Hand that has led us thus far still 
lead us on 

"O'er moor and fen, 
O'er crag and torrent till the night is gone." 

Dr. Henry van Dyke has expressed our feelings as we turn our noses 
westward: 

'Tis fine to see the Old World and travel up and down 
Among the famous places and cities of renown, 
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings, 
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things. 

O, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;; 
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair; 
And it's sweet to dream in Venice and it's great to study Rome, 
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home. 

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack, 
The past is too much with her, and her people looking back; 
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free — 
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be. 

So it's home again, and home again, America for me! 
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be; 
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars, 
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars. 

FINIS. 



